PA-Aware Partially-Connected Hybrid Beamforming Design for Wideband Integrated Sensing and Communication

Zhang M, Huang T, Reissland T, Maiwald T, Franchi N, Weigel R (2026)

Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2026

Journal

IEEE Journal of Microwaves IEEE

DOI: 10.1109/JMW.2026.3728101

Abstract

Integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) systems operating in the millimeter-wave (mmWave) spectrum critically depend on hybrid beamforming (HBF) architectures to achieve an effective trade-off between hardware implementation complexity and beamforming flexibility. However, the nonlinear behavior of power amplifiers (PAs) can significantly degrade system performance, especially in wideband OFDM transmission, where high peak-to-average power ratios and frequency-dependent PA responses introduce additional distortion. Most existing HBF designs either compensate for nonlinear distortion through predistortion techniques or impose simple transmit power constraints, which do not explicitly regulate the PA’s operating region. This paper proposes a PA-aware hybrid beamforming framework that explicitly incorporates PA characteristics into the precoder design. A soft operating-region constraint, derived from the statistical distribution of the OFDM input power, is introduced to regulate the excitation level of each RF chain. This constraint facilitates an optimal trade-off between power efficiency and linearity, while mitigating excessive distortion caused by compression. In addition, a lightweight frequency-domain compensation mechanism is developed to mitigate frequency-selective amplitude distortion in wideband transmissions. The proposed framework operates entirely in the digital precoding domain and therefore does not require additional RF hardware modification. Its effectiveness is validated through system-level simulations using both parameterized PA models and measurement-based PA characteristics, demonstrating robust distortion-aware performance under realistic hardware conditions.

Authors with CRIS profile

Mengyu Zhang Lehrstuhl für Intelligente Technische Elektronik und Systeme Tianzhu Huang Lehrstuhl für Intelligente Technische Elektronik und Systeme Timo Maiwald Lehrstuhl für Intelligente Technische Elektronik und Systeme Norman Franchi Lehrstuhl für Intelligente Technische Elektronik und Systeme Robert Weigel Lehrstuhl für Technische Elektronik (LTE)

Involved external institutions

Wolf Radar GmbH DE Germany (DE)

How to cite

APA:

Zhang, M., Huang, T., Reissland, T., Maiwald, T., Franchi, N., & Weigel, R. (2026). PA-Aware Partially-Connected Hybrid Beamforming Design for Wideband Integrated Sensing and Communication. IEEE Journal of Microwaves. https://doi.org/10.1109/JMW.2026.3728101

MLA:

Zhang, Mengyu, et al. "PA-Aware Partially-Connected Hybrid Beamforming Design for Wideband Integrated Sensing and Communication." IEEE Journal of Microwaves (2026).

BibTeX: Download