Principle of Operation
The direct-conversion receiver feeds the radio frequency signal into a frequency mixer, just as in a superheterodyne receiver. However unlike the superheterodyne, the frequency of the local oscillator is not offset from but right at the received signal's frequency. The result is a demodulated output just as you would obtain from a superheterodyne receiver using synchronous detection (a product detector) following an intermediate frequency (IF) stage. In other words, the conversion to baseband is done in a single frequency conversion. This avoids the complexity of the superheterodyne's two (or more) frequency conversions, IF stage(s), and image rejection issues.
Read more about this topic: Synchrodyne
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