Comparison of the imbalance effects in direct conversion transmitters and receivers

Although direct conversion transmitters and receivers share the same structure certain differences in their behavior can be found. These differences result in diverse performance limitations. This paper derives a linear model of direct conversion transmitters and receivers. Based on this model methods to extract the frequency dependent characteristics are introduced and compensators are suggested. By applying these techniques to a custom transmitter and receiver setup the achievable imbalance suppressions are demonstrated and the derived performance improvements are compared.