In this paper, multi-hop cooperative networks implementing channel state information (CSI)-assisted amplifyand-forward (AF) relaying in the presence of in-phase and quadrature-phase (I/Q) imbalance at both the transmitting and receiving sides are investigated. We propose a compensation algorithm for the I/Q imbalance by making use of the received signal at the destination together with its conjugation to detect the
desired signals. The performance of the multi-hop CSI-assisted AF cooperative networks with and without compensation for I/Q imbalance in Nakagami-m fading environment is evaluated in terms of average symbol error probability. Numerical results are provided and show that the proposed compensation method can effectively mitigate the impact of I/Q imbalance.

Accepted for publication