Mean acquisition time of active-and passive-correlation acquisition systems for spread-spectrum communication systems

In PN spread-spectrum communication systems, a PN-code generator at the receiver has to track the PN code contained in the received signal. In practical applications, the time necessary for the initial synchronisation (acquisition) of the tracking ioop should be as short as possible. In the paper, formulas are set up for the calculation of the mean acquisition time for two important acquisition procedures, namely the serial-search active-correlation procedure and the matched-filter passive-correlation procedure. Further-more, the application of the formulas is illustrated by calculating the minimum realisable mean acquisition time and the optimum search rate of a serial acquisition system, and the minimum realisable mean acquisition time of a passive-correlation acquisition system.