A two-stage multi-path searcher for uplink WCDMA base station

Multi-path searcher (MPS) is used to determine and track the finger positions of a RAKE receiver. It takes advantage of the multi-path diversity and assigns fingers to the correct multi-path component. A drawback of the existing multi-path searchers for uplink WCDMA base-station RAKE receiver is that their computational complexity is high or the probability of detection of a valid multi-path is low. In order to solve this problem, in this paper, a two-stage MPS, based on a downlink reduced search range by using an offset interleaving search approach and a single correlator, is proposed. The algorithm is shown to have a low computational complexity and to provide a high detection performance in comparison to the conventional MPS.