Differentially Coherent Code Acquisition in the Multiple Transmit/Receive Antenna Assisted Multi-Carrier DS-CDMA Downlink

We examine both differentially coherent and non-coherent code acquisition schemes designed for the multiple transmit/receive antenna assisted multi-carrier (MC)-DS-CDMA downlink, when communicating over uncorrelated Rayleigh channels. It is demonstrated that in contrast to our expectations, when the number of transmit antennas and/or that of the subcarriers is increased in both the differentially coherent and the non-coherent code acquisition scenarios, the achievable mean acquisition time (MAT) usually deteriorates over the entire signal-to-interference plus noise ratio (SINR) per chip (E_c/I₀) range considered.