Performance of first order pseudonoise code tracking loop using smart antenna under multi-path fading environment

It has been reported that a smart antenna can improve bit error rate (BER) performance significantly in a mobile communications system (Tanaka, S. et al., IEEE JSAC, vol.18, no.8, p.1495-504, 2000). However, the smart antenna has not been applied and analyzed much for the pseudonoise (PN) code tracking loop, which is one of the important aspects in spread spectrum communications receivers. We present a performance analysis of a first order PN-code tracking loop with a smart antenna under a frequency selective fading environment, and show that the smart antenna can also improve the PN code tracking loop significantly, compared to a single antenna element system. We employ the root mean square (RMS) error and mean time to lose lock (MTLL) of the PN code tracking loop as performance criterion.