Lower bounds on the Hamming auto- and cross correlations of frequency-hopping sequences

Frequency hopping (FH) sequences have found wide applications in various modern FH spread-spectrum communications and radar systems. In FH spread-spectrum communications, the interference occurs when two distinct transmitters use the same frequency simultaneously. In order to evaluate the goodness of FH sequence design, the Hamming correlation function is used as an important measure. In this correspondence, by considering separately the maximum Hamming autocorrelation sidelobe H_a, and the maximum Hamming cross correlation H_c, several new lower bounds on the size p of the frequency slot set F, the sequence length L, the family size M, and correlation properties are established. The new periodic bounds include the known Lempel-Greenberger bounds as special case when M=2, and are tighter than the Seay bounds under certain conditions when M>2. Furthermore, the new bounds disclose more information on the relationship between the maximum autocorrelation sidelobe and the maximum cross correlation compared with the Lempel-Greenberger bounds and Seay bounds. Besides, the aperiodic FH bounds which have not yet been previously reported are also presented and discussed in this correspondence.