Behavioral modeling and simulation of multi-standard RF receivers using MATLAB/SIMULINK

This paper presents a SIMULINK block set for the behavioral modeling and high-level simulation of RF receiver frontends. The toolbox includes a library with the main RF circuit models that are needed to implement wireless transceivers, namely: low noise amplifiers, mixers, oscillators, filters and programmable gain amplifiers. There is also a library including other blocks like the antenna, duplexer filter and switches, required to implement reconfigurable architectures. Behavioral models of building blocks include the main ideal functionality as well as the following non-idealities: thermal noise characterized by the Noise Figure (NF) and the Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) and nonlinearity expressed by the input-referred 2nd- and 3rd-order intercept points, IIP2 and IIP3, respectively. In addition to these general parameters, some block specific errors have been also included, like oscillator phase noise and mixer offset. These models have been incorporated into the SIMULINK environment making an extensive use of C-coded S-functions and reducing the number of library block elements. This approach reduces the simulation time while keeping high accuracy, what makes the proposed toolbox very appropriate to be combined with an optimizer for the automated high-level synthesis of radio receivers. As an application of the capabilities of the presented toolbox, a multi-standard Direct-Conversion Receiver (DCR) intended for 4G telecom systems is modeled and simulated considering the building-block requirements for the different standards.

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