I/Q imbalance in generalized frequency division multiplexing under Weibull fading

Fifth generation (5G) wireless communications promise low cost, reliable and high speed communication. To achieve this and to help overcome the drawbacks associated with orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), waveforms such as generalized frequency division multiplexing (GFDM) and filter bank multiple carrier (FBMC) have been proposed. But just like OFDM, these waveforms suffer from the effects of radio frequency (RF) impairments thus compromising the system performance. In this paper, we study the effects of the in-phase (I) and quadrature (Q) imbalance (I/Q imbalance) on a GFDM system under Weibull fading channels. The average symbol error probability (SEP) performance of a system without and with I/Q imbalance compensation is presented. For completeness, the performance of the GFDM system is compared with that of an OFDM system. We also present results on the effects of the order of modulation and image leakage ratio on system performance.