The performance of direct-sequence spread spectrum with complex processing and quaternary data modulation

The receiver processing that is often employed for direct-sequence spread spectrum with quaternary data modulation operates separately on in-phase and quadrature components of the spread-spectrum signal. Previous results on complex quaternary sequences, which are also referred to as four-phase sequences, provide a strong motivation to employ alternative processing methods that permit the receiver to benefit from the correlation properties of these sequences. With this goal in mind we present receiver architectures that use complex processing and are capable of demodulating the signals proposed for the third-generation mobile cellular code-division multiple-access systems. The performance of the proposed receiver architecture with complex processing is shown to be determined by the complex aperiodic correlation functions for the spreading sequences. Comparisons are made with systems in which the quaternary sequences are derived from pairs of common binary spreading sequences and the receiver employs separate in-phase and quadrature processing. We find that in spite of their superior periodic crosscorrelation properties, the previously developed quaternary sequences do not provide significantly smaller error probabilities in multiple-access systems.