Code acquisition in transmit diversity DS-CDMA systems

In this paper, two code acquisition schemes are studied for use in conjunction with transmit diversity direct-sequence code-division multiple access (DS-CDMA). One is a training-based single-user maximum-likelihood (SUML) estimator, which can achieve code acquisition very fast at low computational complexity. The other is a blind estimator based on the multiple signal classification (MUSIC) algorithm. Two recently proposed transmit diversity schemes known as orthogonal transmit diversity simulcast (OTD-S) and space-time selective spreading transmit diversity (STSTD) are considered. While the advantages of transmit diversity from the detection standpoint are well known, less is known about how code acquisition performance is affected by the use of transmit diversity. Through the analysis in this paper, it is proven that the SUMI. estimator should give the same performance in both the OTD-S and STSTD schemes in a single-user environment. In a multiple-user environment, simulation results show that the STSTD system offers slightly better code acquisition performance. It is also seen that the SUML estimators provide significantly better code acquisition performance than the MUSIC estimators in either transmit diversity system. From the standpoint of robustness to carrier frequency offset, it Is found that the training-based SUML estimator is very sensitive to frequency offset, while the MUSIC estimator is quite robust. A simple frequency offset estimator to be used in conjunction with the SUML estimator is also proposed and is shown to make the timing estimator quite tolerant of substantial frequency offsets.