Post acquisition PN code uncertainty reduction by least-squares interpolation

In direct-sequence spread-spectrum systems, typical acquisition strategies for searching the uncertainty region of the PN code operate either serially or in parallel at half-chip increments. The 2.5-dB offset loss resulting from a worse-case quarter-chip timing error has direct impact on the architectural design of both the acquisition and tracking subsystems. A computationally efficient technique based on least squares estimation is presented for reducing the quarter-chip post acquisition uncertainty. Performance results are presented that illustrate marked improvement over the worse-case loss of 2.5 dB. The computational complexity of the proposed algorithm is minimal