Cell search in 3GPP long term evolution systems

This paper reviews and presents the latest results in the cell search issue of the 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) systems. Cell Search is a basic function of any cellular system, during which process time and frequency synchronization between the mobile terminal and the network is achieved. Such synchronization is especially important for 3GPP Long Term Evolution systems, which rely heavily on the orthogonality of the uplink and downlink transmission and reception to optimize the radio link performance. As in conventional cellular systems, the mobile terminal in an LTE system acquires time and frequency synchronization by processing the synchronization channel. Design of the synchronization channel is being developed within the standardization activities of 3GPP Long Term Evolution and is still evolving. In this paper, we present the design considerations and various new and promising design concepts for the synchronization channel. We evaluate some specific solutions and provide numerical performance results.