Realistic hardware imperfections in communication system under Gaussian approximation model and generalised Gaussian model

Studying hardware imperfections in the communication system is very important. It can cause in‐phase/quadrature (I/Q) imbalance and phase noise problems. This study proposed a realistic communication system under hardware imperfections and self‐interference. The impact of hardware imperfections at the transmitter, at the relays and the receiver is analysed for two and three transmission hops. A realistic Gaussian approximation model and generalised Gaussian model are proposed to show its impact on system performance. Assuming that the channels are subjected to Nakagami‐ m fading. A closed‐form expression for the outage probability is mathematically derived. The comparison between the proposed system and other systems with distortions and I/Q imbalance is provided. Results demonstrate that the performance of realistic communication system is more degraded, especially at higher transmission hops.