Initial synchronisation of wideband and UWB direct sequence systems: single- and multiple-antenna aided solutions

This survey guides the reader through the open literature on the principle of initial synchronisation in single-antenna-assisted single- and multi-carrier Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) as well as Direct Sequence-Ultra WideBand (DS-UWB) systems, with special emphasis on the DownLink (DL). There is a paucity of up-to-date surveys and review articles on initial synchronization solutions for MIMO-aided and cooperative systems - even though there is a plethora of papers on both MIMOs and on cooperative systems, which assume perfect synchronization. Hence this paper aims to ?ll the related gap in the literature

Initial and Post-Initial Acquisition in the Serial Search Based Noncoherent Multiple Transmit/Receive Antenna Aided DS-CDMA Downlink

In this paper we investigate the issues of both initial and post-initial acquisition schemes in the multiple transmit/receive antenna aided DS-CDMA downlink, when communicating over uncorrelated Rayleigh channels. The associated Mean Acquisition Time (MAT) performance trends are characterised as a function of the number of transmit/receive antennas. Furthermore, we characterise both the initial and post-initial acquisition performance as a function of the relevant system parameters. It is demonstrated that in contrast to our expectations, the achievable MAT degrades at low Ec/Io values, except for the case of P = 2 transmit antennas operating in conjunction with R=1 receive antenna over the specific Signal-to-Interference plus Noise Ratio (SINR) per chip (Ec/Io) range considered, as the number of transmit antennas is increased. Ironically, our findings suggest that increasing the number of transmit antennas in a MIMO-aided CDMA system results in combining the low-energy, noise-contaminated signals of the transmit antennas, which ultimately increases the MAT by an order of magnitude, when the SINR is relatively low. This phenomenon has a detrimental effect on the performance of Rake receiver based synchronisation schemes, when the perfectly synchronised system is capable of attaining its target bit error rate performance at reduced SINR values, as a benefit of employing multiple transmit antennas. Therefore our future research will be focused on specifically designing acquisition schemes for MIMO systems

Coded DS-CDMA Systems with Iterative Channel Estimation and no Pilot Symbols

In this paper, we describe direct-sequence code-division multiple-access (DS-CDMA) systems with quadriphase-shift keying in which channel estimation, coherent demodulation, and decoding are iteratively performed without the use of any training or pilot symbols. An expectation-maximization channel-estimation algorithm for the fading amplitude, phase, and the interference power spectral density (PSD) due to the combined interference and thermal noise is proposed for DS-CDMA systems with irregular repeat-accumulate codes. After initial estimates of the fading amplitude, phase, and interference PSD are obtained from the received symbols, subsequent values of these parameters are iteratively updated by using the soft feedback from the channel decoder. The updated estimates are combined with the received symbols and iteratively passed to the decoder. The elimination of pilot symbols simplifies the system design and allows either an enhanced information throughput, an improved bit error rate, or greater spectral efficiency. The interference-PSD estimation enables DS-CDMA systems to significantly suppress interference.Comment: To appear, IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communication

Analytical Bit Error Rate Performance of DS-CDMA Ad Hoc Networks using Large Area Synchronous Spreading Sequences

The performance of large area synchronous (LAS) direct sequence code division multiple access (DS-CDMA) assisted ad hoc networks is investigated in the context of a single-hop infinite mesh of rectilinearly located ad hoc nodes. It is shown that LAS DS-CDMA exhibits a significantly better performance than the family of traditional spreading sequences used in a quasisynchronous DS-CDMA scenario having a low number of resolvable multipath components and a sufficiently high number of RAKE receiver branches. The benefits of LAS codes in ad hoc networks are multifold: (i) Their performance is noise-limited, rather than interference-limited, provided that the multipath and multi-user interference arrives within their interference free window. (ii) Under the same conditions LAS codes are robust against the ‘near–far’ effects imposed by ad hoc networks operating without base-station-aided power control, without accurate synchronisation and without implementationally complex interference cancellers

Performance of a linear interference canceller for a ds/cdma synchronous system based on the ekf delay estimator

Since the conventional detector often fails to produce reliable decisions for a CDMA channel, several new multiuser detectors have previously proposed. In the present paper, the authors propose both a simple linear scheme for interference cancellation, which exhibits good performance, and a synchronism scheme based on the extended Kalman filter (EKF) to achieve synchronization among the different users at the base station, for a direct-sequence code-division multiple-access (DS/CDMA) synchronous system. The influence of the synchronism scheme on the performance of the interference canceller is analyzed under Rayleigh multipath fading.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version