GNU Radio Conference 2026

Real-Time Digital Pre-Distortion on the Analog Devices Jupiter SDR via GNU Radio

22 Sept 2026, 13:00

30m

Mountain Ballroom (Talley Student Union)

Paper (with talk) RADAR and Communications Main Track

Speaker

Neil Rogers (Analog Devices)

Description

As spectral efficiency demands push modern waveforms toward higher peak-to-average power ratios (PAPR), driving Power Amplifiers (PAs) into their non-linear regions is unavoidable. As a results, Digital Pre-Distortion (DPD) is a critical requirement for mitigating spectral regrowth and maintaining compliance in modern telecommunications and aerospace applications. However, developing, testing, and visualizing DPD algorithms on high-performance RF hardware often requires complex, proprietary toolchains that can slow down research and prototyping.

This presentation demonstrates a complete, closed-loop DPD architecture utilizing the Analog Devices' Jupiter SDR platform (based on the ADRV9002 transceiver) integrated directly with GNU Radio. The Jupiter SDR offers state-of-the-art RF performance and wideband capabilities, making it an ideal candidate for high-fidelity impairment correction. By leveraging standard libiio and pyadi-iio interfaces, we can expose the Jupiter’s high-speed data converters and transceiver controls to the GNU Radio ecosystem, allowing for rapid algorithm iteration in an open-source environment.

During this session, we will showcase a live demonstration of a modern DPD algorithm correcting a non-linear PA driven by a wideband waveform. The demonstration will walk through all aspects of the development:

• Hardware Interface: Streaming synchronized transmit and observation (ORx) data between the Jupiter SDR and GNU Radio.

• Algorithm Execution: Parameter extraction and real-time coefficient calculation/modification using out-of-tree (OOT) blocks.

• Live Visualization: Real-time spectral analysis showing Adjacent Channel Leakage Ratio (ACLR) improvements and AM/AM-AM/PM curve flattening before and after DPD application.

Attendees will leave with a practical understanding of how to interface advanced ADI transceiver platforms with GNU Radio to solve complex RF non-linearities. The session will highlight best practices for managing deterministic latency, data synchronization, and DSP offloading when working with high-bandwidth DPD systems in a software-defined context.