Performance of the serial-search PN code acquisition techniques using Monte Carlo simulation-a comparative evaluation

A comparative performance analysis is presented for noncoherent fixed-dwell detector serial-search pseudonoise (PN) code acquisition; digital matched filters; and noncoherent sequential, detector methods Monte-Carlo simulations are used to obtain the detector characteristics. Their performance was assessed over a predetection signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) range of -4 dB to 10 dB for the case of no data modulation. The critical dependence of the mean acquisition time on the system parameters has been analyzed and the optimization of these parameters to obtain minimum mean acquisition time has been achieved for each detector. The results show that the sequential detector, working at an optimized design predetector SNR performs better than the single-dwell detector and the matched filter at low input SNRs. As the predetection SNR is increased, the matched filter has a significantly improved performance and has the best performance at high SNRs