Performance analysis of an expanding-search algorithm for coarse acquisition of DSSS signals

For coarse acquisition of direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS) signals, a search of the possible code phases is required. In cases such as signal reacquisition, where a priori information is available, the serial search may be abandoned in favor of an expanding search. In this paper, an expanding search algorithm is presented and compared to the expanding-sweep algorithms which have been treated in the literature. Performance results for the serial-search and the expanding-search algorithms are given. A discussion of the optimality of the serial-search and the expanding-search algorithms is presented. Performance comparisons of the serial search and the expanding search are made for different a priori code phase probability density functions (pdfs) and the results are discussed. A technique for determining when the expanding search is an optimal search algorithm is developed and applied to the performance curves shown previously. The results indicate that the expanding search provides a quantifiable improvement over the serial search when the pdf is somewhat peaked. The results also indicate that in many cases the expanding search may be a more effective search algorithm than the more common expanding sweep.