An Efficient Multipath Detection Scheme for CDMA Systems

In conventional CDMA receivers, the detection of multipath components and RAKE finger management is normally based on the received signal energy per path. These schemes essentially overlook the interference component contaminating the total received power. Consequently, they exhibit poor multipath detection capability especially at low signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR). In this paper, we present a new scheme for multipath detection that takes into consideration the interference level in each resolved path individually. Specifically, the proposed scheme is devised to estimate and cancel the interference per path before detection. To account for the hardware limitations of the receiver, we propose a low complexity version of the above scheme which can be easily incorporated into the receiver structure. Our results show that the proposed scheme provides significant improvements in the detection probability of multipath components over the energy-based schemes.