IQ Imbalance in Multiuser Systems: Channel Estimation and Compensation

In this paper, we consider the uplink of a single-cell multi-user single-input multiple-output (MU-SIMO) system with in-phase and quadrature-phase imbalance (IQI). In particular, we investigate the effect of receive (RX) IQI on the performance of MU-SIMO systems with large antenna arrays employing maximum-ratio combining receivers. In order to study how IQI affects channel estimation, we derive a new channel estimator for the IQI-impaired model and show that the higher the value of signal-to-noise ratio, the higher the impact of IQI on the spectral efficiency (SE). Moreover, a novel pilot-based joint estimator of the augmented multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) channel matrix and IQI coefficients is described, and then, a low-complexity IQI compensation scheme is proposed, which is based on the IQI coefficients' estimation and it is independent of the channel gain. The performance of the proposed compensation scheme is analytically evaluated by deriving a tractable approximation of the ergodic SE assuming transmission over Rayleigh fading channels with large-scale fading. Furthermore, we investigate how many mobile stations should be scheduled in massive MIMO systems with IQI and show that the highest SE loss occurs at the optimal operating point. Finally, by deriving asymptotic power scaling laws and proving that the SE loss due to IQI is asymptotically independent of the number of BS antennas, we show that massive MIMO is resilient to the effect of RX IQI.