IQ imbalance image compensation in multi-carrier wireless communication systems

1. A method in a wireless communication terminal, the method comprising:

receiving, at the terminal, an OFDM symbol carrying an aggregated carrier including a first component carrier and a second component carrier, the OFDM symbol including a reference signal, wherein the first component carrier includes a first subcarrier carrying a first symbol of the reference signal and a second subcarrier carrying a second symbol of the reference symbol, and wherein the second component carrier includes a third subcarrier carrying a third symbol of the reference signal and a fourth subcarrier carrying a fourth symbol of the reference signal;

measuring leakage from the first, second, third, and fourth subcarriers;

receiving a signal on the aggregated carrier; and

compensating for leakage of the signal from the first component carrier to the second component carrier based on the measurement of the leakage of the reference signal.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising

generating a parameter based on the measurement of the leakage of the reference signal from the first component carrier to the second component carrier; and

compensating for leakage of the signal from the first component carrier to the second component carrier by applying a transformation of the parameter to the received signal.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the transformation of the parameter to the received signal is a linear combination of the received signal scaled by a first coefficient and a complex conjugate of the received signal scaled by a second coefficient, and wherein the first and second coefficients of the linear combination are a function of the parameter generated.

4. The method of claim 2 further comprising compensating for leakage of the signal from the first component carrier to the second component carrier by applying a time domain transformation of the parameter to the received signal.

5. The method of claim 2 further comprising compensating for leakage of the signal from the first component carrier to the second component carrier by applying a frequency domain transformation of the parameter to the received signal.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

receiving scheduling information indicating when the reference signal will be transmitted on the first component carrier;

receiving the reference signal on a time slot of the first component carrier; and

measuring the leakage of the reference signal from the first component carrier onto a corresponding time slot on the second component carrier.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising receiving the aggregated carrier including the reference signal on the first component carrier and measuring leakage of the reference signal from the first component carrier onto the second component carrier before receiving the signal on the aggregated carrier.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the signal received on the aggregated carrier is selected from a group consisting of: a physical downlink control channel, a physical downlink shared data channel, a synchronization channel, a physical broadcast channel, a cell-specific reference signal, a demodulation reference signal, a CSI reference signal, a physical hybrid-ARQ indicator channel, a physical control format indicator channel, and physical multicast channel.