Partial Correlation Properties of Pseudonoise (PN) Codes in Noncoherent Synchronization/Detection Schemes

This concise paper considers the effect on the autocorrelation function of a pseudonoise (PN) code when the acquisition scheme only integrates coherently over part of the code and then noncoherently combines these results. The peak-to-null ratio of the effective PN autocorrelation function is shown to degrade to
n^{-1/2}
, where
n
is the number of PN symbols over which coherent integration takes place.