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Abstract— Zero-IF receivers are gaining interest because of their poten- given by [11] as
tial to enable low-cost OFDM terminals. However, Zero-IF receivers in-
troduce IQ imbalance which may have a huge impact on the performance. riq = (1 + ) cos ∆φ<{r} − (1 + ) sin ∆φ={r}
Rather than increasing design time or component cost to decrease the IQ
imbalance, an alternative is to tolerate the IQ imbalance and compensate + [(1 − ) cos ∆φ={r} − (1 − ) sin ∆φ<{r}] (1)
it digitally. Current solutions require extra analog hardware or converge = (cos ∆φ + sin ∆φ) · r + ( cos ∆φ − sin ∆φ) · r∗
too slowly for bursty communication. Moreover, the tremendous impact of
a frequency offset on the IQ estimation/compensation problem is not con- = α · r + β · r∗ (2)
sidered. In this paper, we analyze the joint IQ imbalance-frequency offset
estimation and propose a low-cost, highly effective, all-digital compensation with riq the time domain signal with IQ imbalance, <() denotes
scheme. For large IQ imbalance ( = 10%, ∆φ = 10o ) and large frequency the real part, =() the imaginary part and ()∗ the complex conju-
offsets, our solution results in an average implementation loss below 0.5 dB.
It therefore enables the design of low-cost, low-complexity OFDM receivers. gate and
α = cos ∆φ + sin ∆φ (3)
β = cos ∆φ − sin ∆φ (4)
I. I NTRODUCTION
Frequency domain signals are underscored, while time domain
OFDM is a widely recognized and standardized modulation
signals are not. Signals are indicated in bold and scalar parame-
technique [1], [2]. Unfortunately, OFDM is also sensitive to
ters in normal font.
non-idealities in the receiver front-end [3]. This sensitivity leads
Throughout the rest of the paper, the term IQ parameters
either to heavy front-end specifications and thus an expensive
refers to α and β for calculations and estimations ; to indicate
front-end or to large performance degradations. IQ imbalance
physical parameters, however, we use the more direct and ∆φ.
has been identified as a key front-end effect for OFDM systems.
We also analyze the effect of the IQ imbalance in the fre-
However, OFDM is also very sensitive to frequency off-
quency domain. If d is the incoming OFDM symbol (thus
sets [4]. Therefore, we investigate the joint IQ imbalance and
d = dt · c + n with dt the transmitted OFDM symbol, c the
frequency offset estimation and compensation and introduce a
channel and n the noise and · an element-wise multiplication),
low-complexity compensation scheme to combat the IQ imbal-
then IF F T (d) is the corresponding time domain signal. Apply-
ance and Carrier Frequency Offset (CFO). To the best of our
ing the IQ imbalance (2) and taking the F F T to convert back to
knowledge, no such solution has been proposed so far. [5], [6]
the frequency domain leads to
propose a calibration solution which requires extra, carefully de-
signed, analog hardware. [7] investigates only the impact of IQ diq = F F T {α · IF F T (d) + β · [IF F T (d)]∗ }
imbalance on the CFO estimation. [8], [9] offer a IQ compen- = α · d + β · d∗m (5)
sation with slow convergence and ignore the impact of the fre-
quency offset. In [10] we proposed an IQ compensation with a where diq is the OFDM symbol with IQ imbalance and dm the
fast convergence, but it only handles small frequency offsets. incoming OFDM symbol, mirrored over the carriers: (d)m (i) =
In this paper, we propose an all-digital, low-complexity IQ (d)(mod(Nsc − i + 2, Nsc )), with Nsc the number of sub-
compensation which converges within 1 OFDM training symbol carriers in the OFDM symbol, 1 ≤ i ≤ N and mod the modulo
and can handle large frequency offsets. operation. Carrier 1 is the DC carrier.
In this paper we focus on IQ compensation for bursty com-
II. IQ IMBALANCE munication, for which channel estimation is performed on the
basis of a known training symbol. Both IEEE802.11a [1] and
This section is a brief summary of [10] to introduce the IQ
HIPERLAN-II [2] provide such a Long Training Symbol (LTS)
model and the frame work to compare other algorithms. More
(BPSK symbol t). The effect of IQ imbalance on channel esti-
details can be found in that paper.
mation can be calculated based on (5) (and ignoring the noise for
the moment ; its effect is taken into account for the performance
A. Effect/Model
analysis)
IQ imbalance can be characterized by 2 parameters: the am-
plitude imbalance between the I and Q branch, and the phase
orthogonality mismatch ∆φ. The complex baseband equation h = t · [α(t · c) + β(t · c)∗m ]
for the IQ imbalance effect on the ideal time domain signal r is = α · c + β · t0 · c∗m (6)
† Jan Tubbax is also a Ph.D Student at the KULeuven. where h is the channel estimate calculated from the LTS, c is
∗ is also a professor at the KULeuven. the exact channel vector and t0 = t · tm .
1.5 analog digital
^
h c
TS IQ
IQ FFT LTS
*
est
()m α,β
1
time
|H|
0.5
Fig. 2. Overview of the IQ estimation/compensation.
channel without IQ
channel with IQ
channel with IQ corrected the data. As we already have an estimate of the IQ parameters
0
0 10 20 30
carrier
40 50 60 70
before the data symbols arrive we can compensate the effect in
the time domain, i.e. before the FFT: this allows us to correct
Fig. 1. The effect of IQ imbalance and correction on channel estimation. the IQ imbalance as early as possible. The setup is shown in
figure 2.
B. Estimation/Compensation To obtain the corrected signal r̂ from the observed time do-
main signal riq , we need to solve (2) for r, i.e.
From (6) the corrected channel response is
α∗ · riq − β · r∗iq
α∗ h − βt0 · h∗m r̂ = (11)
ĉ = (7) |α|2 − |β|2
|α|2 − |β|2
Since this algorithm is based on a frequency-domain estima-
The estimation of α and β is based on the information that the
tion of the IQ parameters, throughout the rest of the paper we
corrected channel response should have a smooth channel char-
refer to it as the ’IQ-Frequency Domain’ or IQ-FD algorithm.
acteristic: since the coherence bandwidth of the channel is (a
lot) larger than the inter-carrier-spacing in a WLAN system, the C. Performance
channel response does not change substantially between succes-
sive frequency taps (the x-line in figure 1). With IQ imbalance, To test the performance of the estimation/compensation
sharp transitions occur in the measured channel response h due scheme, we ran simulations for coded 64QAM in a multi-path
to the β degradation term (the o-line in figure 1). Thus, cor- environment. The multi-path channel are obtained through ray-
recting the IQ imbalance means making the channel response tracing simulations [12]. The impact of severe IQ imbalance
’smooth’ again. Therefore, we select the set of IQ parameters ( = 10%, ∆φ = 10o ) on coded (R = 3/4 from the IEEE or
(α, β) which renders the corrected channel response ĉ as smooth HIPERLAN standard) 64QAM transmission is quite dramatic:
as possible ; in other words we minimize the Mean Square Error it renders the system useless, causing a error floor of 5.10−1 .
(MSE) between consecutive channel coefficients Our combined channel and IQ estimation/compensation scheme
X gets the degradation at a BER of 10−5 down to 0.25 dB (fig-
M SE = |ĉl+1 − ĉl |2 (8) ure 4). The compensation scheme with the exact knowledge of
l the IQ parameters fully eliminates the IQ imbalance.
The derivation can be found in [10]. The results are III. IQ C OMPENSATION IN THE PRESENCE OF CFO
0 0 A. Effect/Model
P
l (hP
l+1 − hl )(t −l−1 h−l−1 − t −l h−l )
β̂ = 0 0 2
(9)
l |t −l−1 h−l−1 − t −l h−l | In the time domain a Carrier Frequency Offset (CFO) causes
q
<{β̂}={β̂} an additional phase rotation proportional with time t on an in-
α̂ = 1 − =2 {β̂} − q (10) coming signal r
1 − =2 {β̂} rcfo = r · e2πCF O·t (12)
Figure 1 shows that we can correct the influence of the IQ In the frequency domain, a frequency offset causes leakage [13].
imbalance on the channel estimate extremely well: the corrected This means an OFDM symbol d is received under a frequency
channel response (the ∆-line) coincides (almost) perfectly with offset as
NX
sc −1
the exact channel response (the x-line). Note that carriers 28 to
(dcfo )i = dj · γi−j (13)
38 are zero carriers, which means no channel estimate is needed
j=0
on those carriers.
This algorithm provides us with a corrected channel response where γ is the inter-carrier-interference caused by the frequency
and an estimate of the IQ parameters α and β (or equivalently offset CFO
and ∆φ). Since and ∆φ and thus α and β are typically
CF O Nsc −1 sin π( CF O
∆f − n)
static over many symbols, we can use their estimates from the γn = eπ( ∆f −n) Nsc (14)
channel correction also for the correction of the IQ imbalance on sin Nπsc ( CF O
∆f − n)
analog digital
with ∆f is the inter-carrier-spacing and Nsc the total number of r1 h1 ^
-CFO FFT LTS c
carriers in the system. TS
CFO IQ CFO IQ
est est
Mathematical analysis of the RF signals shows that the effect +CFO
r2
()* FFT LTS
h2
α,β
time
of the IQ imbalance and CFO can be modeled at baseband by ^
riq r
first applying the frequency offset CF O, followed by all IQ im- data CFO IQ -IQ -CFO FFT EQ
(18) yields the corrected time domain signal based on r1 and r2 . angle(E[x2 · x∗1 ])
Equivalently, we write the equation for the channel correction CFˆ O = (22)
2πNsc Ts
0
10 IV. C ONCLUSIONS
−1
In this paper, we introduced a low-complexity estima-
10
tion/compensation scheme that tackles the IQ imbalance caused
by Zero-IF receivers. The scheme converges on one OFDM
10
−2
training symbol. It removes large IQ imbalance ( =
10%, ∆φ = 10o ) and reduces the average remaining degra-
BER
10
−3
dation down to 0.5 dB, even in the presence of large fre-
quency offsets. This allows to relax the IQ mismatch specifi-
10
−4 cations significantly. In turn, this allows to use cheaper com-
Reference ponents and to shorten the design time. Therefore, our esti-
No IQ compensation
−5 IQ compensation mation/compensation scheme enables low-cost, low-complexity
10
14 16 18 20 22 24
SNR (dB)
26 28 30 32 34 OFDM receivers.
Fig. 4. The performance of the IQ compensation scheme for coded (R=3/4) R EFERENCES
64QAM and ( = 10%,∆φ = 10o ) in the absence of a frequency offset. [1] IEEE standard 802.11a-1999 - part 11: wireless LAN medium access con-
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layer in the 5 GHz band. 1999.
[2] HIPERLAN type 2 standard - functional specification data link control
1
(DLC) layer. October 1999.
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vs. single-carrier with cyclic prefix: a system-based comparison. In IEEE
0.8
VTC Fall, volume 2, pages 1115–1119, 2001.
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The IQ estimation/compensation algorithm requires no extra
analog hardware and a very small additional digital complexity.
The IQ imbalance may occur anywhere in the receiver, because
the RF, LO and baseband contributions are jointly estimated and
compensated.
Since the IQ estimation only requires a known Training Sym-
bol, this scheme is applicable to any system which uses a Train-
ing Symbol to estimate the channel (e.g. Wireless LAN [2],
[1] and Broadband Fixed Wireless Access [14]). Moreover, the
scheme is also independent of the data that follows the Train-
ing Symbol. This means it is applicable to any constellation size
and to OFDM as well as Single-Carrier with Frequency-Domain
Processing.