History

The IMS Power Amplifier Linearization through Digital Predistortion (DPD) Student Design Competition (SDC) was first introduced at IMS 2014 in Tampa, FL, organized by Chalmers University. The challenge for the inaugural edition was to develop a suitable DPD solution for a Doherty Power Amplifier operating with carrier-aggregated LTE signals featuring different bandwidths but similar average power. The winners were Filipe Barradas and Luis Nunes from Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal.

In 2015, the competition returned at IMS in Phoenix, AZ, once again organized by Chalmers University. That year, participants were tasked with compensating for distortion in a GaN power amplifier under a realistic, burst-like wideband signal environment. The winners of the 2015 edition were David López and Teng Wang from CTTC / Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), Spain.

The 2016 edition, held at IMS in San Francisco, CA, saw the organization of the DPD competition transition to Universidade de Aveiro. Competitors were challenged to linearize a GaN Doherty PA in a dual-band operating scenario. Noel Kelly and Wenhui Cao from University College Dublin (UCD), Ireland, emerged as the winners.

At IMS 2017 in Honolulu, HI, the competition was organized by Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. The objective that year was to linearize a concurrent dual-band envelope tracking power amplifier. The winning team consisted of Harald Enzinger and Karl Freiberger from Graz University of Technology, Austria.

The DPD competition returned at IMS 2019 in Boston, MA, this time organized by Tsinghua University. The focus was on designing a DPD algorithm capable of linearizing a 2-channel MIMO transmitter with cross-coupling effects. The winners were Thomas Ackermann, Julian Potschka, and Tim Maiwald from Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany.

Photo of IMS 2014 DPD SDC.

Photo of IMS 2015 DPD SDC.

Photo of IMS 2016 DPD SDC.

Photo of IMS 2017 DPD SDC.

Photo of IMS 2019 DPD SDC.