Unambiguous Acquisition Technique for Cosine-Phased Binary Offset Carrier Signal

In this letter, an unambiguous acquisition technique is proposed for cosine-phased binary offset carrier (BOC) modulated signals. The test criterion used in this technique is based on a synthesized correlation function that has no positive side peak. This synthesized correlation function is obtained from the difference of two squared cross-correlation functions of the received cosine-BOC (m,n) signal with two local auxiliary signals. The modulated symbols of the local auxiliary signals are derived and simulations show that the proposed method completely removes the ambiguity threat in acquisition process at a cost of minor degradation in the detection probability and the complexity of the proposed method is reduced significantly. The proposed technique is also suitable for arbitrary order cosine-BOC signals.