Frequency-dependent I/Q imbalance and frequency-independent I/Q imbalance are the major impairments in wideband zero-IF receivers, and they both cannot be ignored. In this paper, a blind calibration model is designed for compensating these I/Q imbalances. In order to accurately estimate the imbalance parameters with low cost, a classification rule is proposed according to the frequency-domain statistical characteristics of the received signal. The calibration points in the frequency-domain are divided into two groups. Then, the amplitude imbalance and the frequency-dependent phase imbalance are derived from the group of signal points and, separately, the frequency-independent phase imbalance is calculated from the group of noise points. In the derivation of the frequency-dependent phase imbalance, a general fitting model suitable for all signal points is proposed, which does not require special calculations for either DC point or fs/2 point. Then, a finite impulse response (FIR) real-valued filter is designed to correct the impairments of received signal. The performances of the proposed calibration model are evaluated through both simulations and experiments. The simulation results show the image rejection ratio (IRR) improvement to around 35–45 dBc at high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Based on the mismatched data of the ADRV9009 evaluation board, the experimental results exhibit the IRR improvement of both multi-tone and wideband signals to about 30 dBc.

The amplitude and phase imbalances of the in-phase (I) and quadrature (Q) branches inherent in the direct conversion receiver structure cause the generation of image frequency interference signals.In this paper, a frequency-domain I/Q imbalance calibration algorithm is proposed for wideband direct conversion receivers. The I/Q imbalance model is rebuilt by applying the infinitesimal method and FFT algorithm. The mathematical expressions for the exact computation of the I/Q imbalance parameters are derived based on the frequency-domain statistical properties of the baseband signal. The two phase parameters, frequency-dependent I/Q imbalance (FD-IQI) and frequency-independent I/Q imbalance (FI-IQI), are separated according to the parity properties of the imbalance parameter. To avoid the interference from the transmitter, the receiver impairment estimation is performed using a frequency offset (FO) DC training signal, and a low-cost real-valued compensation (RVC) filter is introduced to correct the impairments of the received signal. The performances of the proposed calibration model are evaluated through simulations and experiments. The simulation results show that the image rejection ratio (IRR) is improved to 80-120 dBc and can also exceed 40 dBc at high noise levels. The experimental results based on the CX9261A evaluation board show that the average IRR of the multi-tone signal is increased by 24.99 dB, and the IRR of the wideband signal is increased by 19.08 dB.INDEX TERMS Direct conversion receiver, frequency-dependent I/Q imbalance, frequency-independent I/Q imbalance, frequency-domain statistical properties, infinitesimal method, real-valued compensation filter.