Differentially coherent PN code acquisition with full-period correlation in chip-synchronous DS/SS receivers

Differentially coherent detection techniques for PN code acquisition in direct-sequence spread-spectrum (DS/SS) receivers are designed and analyzed in this letter. The full-period cross correlation (FPC) can be modeled as deterministic for certain types of PN sequences whose autocorrelation functions have ideal shapes the same as those of maximum length shift registration (MLSR) sequences. This model is exploited here to simplify the design and performance evaluation of the proposed detection techniques. Such techniques can be confidently employed as alternatives to noncoherent detectors because of their attractive improvements in the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and, thus, are very suitable for commercial code-division multiple-access (CDMA) systems, which often operate in severely noisy environments. The results of statistical analyses show that the proposed techniques can provide rapid acquisition and improved performance in SNR.