Generalized Serial Search Code Acquisition: The Equivalent Circular State-Diagram Approach

A simple circular state-diagram method has been recently proposed [2] for the modeling, analysis and optimization of straight serial search code acquisition in spread spectrum systems. Herein, the approach is generalized to arbitrary serial strategies, such as the Z-search, expanding window search etc. The basic idea is the construction of equivalent circular state-diagrams, wherefrom the transform-domain description of the stochastic acquisition process is derived. The method circumvents any complicated time-domain combinatorial arguments, is readily systematized and includes recent results as special cases.