Effective PN code acquisition in Global Positioning Systems for new generation wireless networks and services

The ability to support position location within wireless networks provides network operators with additional value added services, as well as users with a host of new applications. This contribution addresses algorithms for the PN code acquisition and synchronization for a Global Positioning System (GPS) signal, such as the one used by position location techniques in the 3rd generation wireless networks (UMTS). In this work, we present a method exploiting local phase coherence (inspired by the Pisarenko harmonic decomposition, PHD) allowing global frequency estimation in the presence of random phase noise. Moreover, we match the conventional power detector testing method for the presence of a synchronization code signal. Several computer simulations have been accomplished to validate the proposed PHD method. In particular, the numerical results obtained from our simulation trials show that the proposed technique is somewhat superior to the non-coherent one. Moreover, the real cost of the proposed method is practically the same, because the same structure of block correlators (implemented by matched filters) needs to be used