On the architecture and performance of an FFT-based spread-spectrum downlink RAKE receiver

This paper describes a spread-spectrum downlink RAKE receiver that computes a data detection in the frequency domain. We assume a pilot signal is transmitted with data signals for channel sounding. The pilot signal does not degrade the receiver bit error rate (BER) performance because the receiver estimates the pilot signal and subtracts the estimated pilot signal from the received signal before data detection. A spreading code matched filter, a channel matched filter, and a sounding receiver are implemented by fast Fourier transform (FFT)-based matched filtering and integrated in a unified architecture. Monte Carlo simulation is used to evaluate the receiver BER performance in both a static channel and a mobile radio channel. Simulation results show that the RAKE receiver performs well in both kinds of channels.