Fast slot synchronization for intercell asynchronous DS/CDMA systems

Slot synchronization is a critical step for fast and reliable cell search in intercell asynchronous direct sequence-code division multiple access systems. To increase reliability, observations over a number of slots may be combined. In this paper, combining schemes of multiple observations are studied for slot synchronization. The optimal combining rule is determined based on detection theory. It is found that two known combining schemes correspond to special cases of the optimal combining. These schemes may not work well in typical environments, since the schemes are optimized for specific environments. To improve slot synchronization performance in typical environments, a new combining scheme is proposed in this paper. The performance of the proposed combining scheme as well as other combining schemes is analyzed for Rayleigh fading channels with frequency offset. Numerical analysis shows that the proposed combining scheme significantly outperforms other combining schemes in typical environments.