Rapid Aquisition Signal Design in a Multiple-Access Environment

Acquisition in a communication receiver is the operation of determining the arrival time of a transmitted periodic timing marker. This is generally accomplished by sending a known acquisition waveform to aid in the arrival time measurement. Certain classes of waveforms are called rapid acquisition waveforms and are advantageous for reducing the time to acquire when sequential methods are used. A multiple-access acquisition environment occurs when a multiplicity of transmitter-receivers are attempting to each individually perform an acquisition operation, each pair interfering with all others. In this paper, a study is made of the interference effects when rapid acquisition techniques are used in a multiple-access environment. The prime object is to determine the manner in which the actual acquisition waveform structure effects the overall system performance. When interference variance is used as a criterion, it is shown that rapid acquisition waveforms made up of component waveforms having disjoint, flat, wideband spectra produce minimal interference. The result suggests the use of coded tone acquisition waveforms. The results have primary application to ranging, surveillance, or navigation operations performed in a many-user situation.