Outlier resistant DS-SS signal processing

We consider the problem of adaptive detection of a spread-spectrum (SS) signal in the presence of unknown correlated SS interference, multipath signal reception, and additive impulsive noise. The proposed general SS receiver structure is comprised by a vector of adaptive chip-based non-linearities followed by an adaptive auxiliary-vector linear tap-weight filter. The non-linear receiver front-end adapts itself to the unknown prevailing noise environment providing robust performance over a wide range of underlying noise distributions while the adaptive auxiliary-vector linear tap-weight filter allows rapid adaptation for SS interference suppression with a limited data record. We examine a clipper-type, a puncher-type and a Hampel-type non-linearity. Numerical and simulation results demonstrate the performance of the proposed approach and offer comparisons with the conventional minimum-variance-distortionless-response (MVDR) filter, as well as the MVDR filter preceded by a vector of adaptive chip-based non-linearities.