Propagation delay estimation of DS-CDMA signals in a fading environment

The problem considered is of estimating propagation delays of the transmitted signals in a direct sequence code division multiple access (DS-CDMA) system operating over fading channels. Special attention is given to the near-far problem. An estimator based on subspace identification techniques is proposed. The Cramer-Rao bound is presented and used as a benchmark when evaluating the performance of the estimator.