Multi-user performance of direct-sequence CDMA using combined binary PPM/orthogonal modulation

A new modulation format is proposed for cellular code-division multiple-access (CDMA) communications where binary pulse position modulation (PPM) is embedded in the chip waveform and combined with orthogonal modulation using Walsh/Hadamard codes. Compared to the conventional CDMA using orthogonal codes, this scheme allows reduction in receiver complexity by lowering the modulation level for the second-stage orthogonal modulation. The staggered (half-chip) quadrature direct-sequence signaling is adopted to uniformly distribute the transmit power and allow noncoherent detection at the receiver because carrier phase tracking is not feasible because of the binary PPM, suitable for the reverse link in cellular networks. Statistics of inter-user interferences are characterized, and then derive the symbol error probability for the proposed M-ary modulation format. It is shown that the advantage in view of receiver complexity can be achieved without deteriorating the multi-user performance in terms of the number of users affordable at a specified error rate