Correlation Properties of W-CDMA Synchronisation Codes

Igor S. Simi}, Ericsson d.o.o, V. Popovi}a 6, Beograd

Igor.Simic@eyu.ericsson.se
Slot #0 Slot #1 cp cs
i,1

Slot #14 cp cs
i,14

I INTODUCTION
Third generation (3G) mobile systems are currently being standardised in different standardisation associations. Higher data rate with improved quality of service and capacity has been main objectives. Among considered 3G air interface technologies CDMA 2000 and Wideband CDMA (W-CDMA) has been approved. In these systems, in the downlink, each base station uses a pseudonoise (PN) sequence (scrambling code) to separate different transmitters. The physical channels are distinguished by using orthogonal channelisation codes (spreading codes). Before any communication with base station (BS) takes place mobile station (MS) has to time synchronise to the scrambling code used in the serving cell. In the CDMA 2000 each BS (cell) employ the same scrambling code but shifted in time (synchronous system). Cell is unique identified by phase shift of the scrambling code. A global positioning system (GPS) is usually applied to achieve synchronism between BSs. On the other hand, in W-CDMA neighbouring BSs use distinct downlink scrambling code from a set of possible codes. Acquisition problem in this (asynchronous) system consists not only in determining the timing of received code but also in identifying the particular scrambling code. Since there can be 512 scrambling codes in the system, the acquisition time could be very large. The process of searching for a cell and synchronising to its PN code is referred to as cell search. In the paper [1] three steps fast cell search algorithm is proposed and later is accepted in 3rd Generation Partnership Project 3GPP [2]. There are three circumstances when cell search has to be performed: initial cell search after MS is switched on, idle mode cell search for finding suitable cell to camp on and active cell search to identify handover candidates. This paper discusses choice of synchronisation codes in W-CDMA system and its correlation properties.

P-SCH S-SCH

cp
i,0 cs

256 chips 2560 chips One 10 ms SCH radio frame

Fig. 1: Structure of Synchronisation Channel (SCH) The Primary SCH consists of a 256 chips long code, denoted as cp in Figure 1, and transmitted once every slot. The PSC is the same for every cell in the system. The Secondary SCH contains a code with 256 chips. The Secondary SCH is transmitted in parallel with the Primary SCH and consists of 16 sequences used to generate a total of 64 different code words that identify 64 code groups. The secondary synchronisation code (SSC) is denoted csi,k in Figure 1, where i = 0, 1, , 63 is the number of the scrambling code group, and k = 0, 1, , 14 is the slot number. Each SSC is chosen from a set of 16 different codes of length 256. This sequence on the Secondary SCH indicates which of the 64 code groups the cell's downlink scrambling code belongs to. The common pilot channel (CPICH) is scrambled with the cell-specific scrambling code. Spreading sequence of CPICH is taken from the set of orthogonal channelisation codes (all ones), maintaining mutual orthogonality with other downlink channels.

Initial cell search

During the initial cell search, the mobile station searches for the base station to which it has the lowest path loss. Following this, the MS determines the code group of the BS, a frame synchronisation, and finally acquires the scrambling code. The initial cell search is carried out in three steps: 1) Slot synchronisation; 2) Frame synchronisation and code-group identification; 3) Scrambling-code identification. During the first step of the cell search procedure the mobile station uses the primary SCH to acquire slot synchronisation to the strongest base station. This is done with a single matched filter (or any similar device) matched to the primary synchronisation code cp which is common to all base stations. The output of the matched filter will have peaks for each base station signal path within a range of the mobile station, see Figure 2. Detecting the position of the strongest peak gives the timing of the strongest base station. For better reliability, the matched filter output could be accumulated over a number of slots. This step of the acquisition algorithm forms searcher, which is always active and searches new

II SYNCHRONISATION CHANNELS AND CELL SEARCH IN W-CDMA

In order to ease MS cell search all BS transmit three downlink channels: Primary Synchronisation Channel (PSCH), Secondary Synchronisation Channel (S-SCH) and Common Pilot Channel (CPICH). The P-SCH together with the S-SCH are also referred as Synchronisation Channel (SCH). The 10 ms radio frames of the Primary and Secondary SCH are divided into 15 slots, each of length 2560 chips. Figure 1 illustrates the structure of the SCH radio frame.

paths or BSs irrespective of whether the receiver is in initial cell search or in idle and active mode.
Matched filter (cp) Slot-wise accumulation Tslot Find maximum Tslot

tracked and signal to interference ratio (SIR) is measured and reported back to the BS.

III SYNCHRONISATION CODES

Since P-SCH sequence is common to all base stations in the network, there is a possibility that sequences from different BS overlap. The probability of this happening increases during handover, since the mobile is equidistant from more than one BSs. To assess the probability of collision of the primary SCH sequences, assume reception of single path from three BS. The probability that sequences from two of three BS collide is 3/2560, where a time slot contains 2560 chips. This probability is significant and it will increase for more BS and multipaths. Also, the less strong paths from handover candidates base stations (cells) can be masked with autocorrelation sidelobes (Figure 3). The sidelobes are generated in process of correlation PSC with received P-SCH of the serving cell. Considering this it is important to choose primary synchronisation code (PSC) with good autocorrelation properties.
Path from BS1 Matched filter (cp) Path from BS2 sidelobes

Two paths from BSi

One path from BSj

Fig. 2: Matched filter P-SCH sequence search for slot synchronisation During the second step of the cell search procedure, the mobile station uses the secondary SCH to find frame synchronisation and identify the code group of the base station found in the first step. There are 16 S-SCH sequences. In frame of 15 slots 15 S-SCH sequences create a code-word taken from code-book of 64 code-words. In each frame same code-word is transmitted in the cell. Code-group can be detected by identifying code-word. All 64 code-words are chosen to have distinct phase shift. To maximise the minimum code distance of the code-book, between different cyclic shifts of the same code-word or between different code-words, in [3] use of comma free Reed Solomon code was proposed and later accepted in 3GPP [2]. During the third step of the cell search procedure the mobile station determines the exact scrambling code used by the found base station. From previous step, the frame boundary and consequently the start of the scrambling code is known. The scrambling code is identified through correlation over the CPICH with all scrambling codes within the code group identified in the second step. For initial cell search number of scrambling codes in identified code group is Nc=8.

Fig. 3: A matched filter output and problem with sidelobes that can mask paths from neighbouring BSs. The best PSC would be sequence without any autocorrelation sidelobes. Unfortunately such sequence does not exist. To minimise self interference caused by sidelobes it is desirable to select PSC with smaller maximum absolute autocorrelation sidelobes (MAS). PSC and SSC are transmitted in parallel and by definition are mutually orthogonal. Hence, secondary synchronisation codes (SSC) must have very small cross-correlation with each other and with the PSC. Standardisation of synchronisation codes started in the European telecommunications standards institute (ETSI) and Associations of radio industries and business (ARIB) continued in 3GPP. Initially in ETSI document [4] for primary SCH an orthogonal Gold code of length 256 chips and for secondary SCH 16 sequences of orthogonal Gold codes of length 256 chips was proposed. PSC with orthogonal Gold code has low MAS (23.1 dB) but implementation complexity of code acquisition hardware is too high. The major part of overall complexity of this scheme is assigned to the first step. A hierarchical sequence approach in [5] for PSC and Hadamard sequences for SSC with Fast Hadamard Transform correlation method in [6] is proposed to reduce the first and the second synchronisation step. Hierarchical sequence CP of length n = n1 * n2 where length of the sequences are n1 and n2 respectively is defined as:

Idle mode cell search

When in idle mode, the mobile station continuously searches for new base stations on the current and other carrier frequencies. The cell search is done in basically the same way as the initial cell search. The main difference compared to the initial cell search is that an idle mobile station has received a neighbouring cell list from the network. This cell list describes in which order the downlink scrambling codes should be searched for and does this significantly reduce the time and effort needed for the scrambling-code search (3rd step). Also the complexity in the 2nd and 3rd step may be reduced if the cell list only includes scrambling codes belonging to a subset of the total set of code groups. The cell list is continuously updated to reflect the changing neighbourhood of a moving mobile station.

Active mode cell search

When in active mode, the mobile station continuously searches for new base stations on the current carrier frequency. This cell search is carried out in basically the same way as the idle mode cell search. The mobile station may also search for new base stations on other carrier frequencies using the slotted mode. For idle and active mode search, a detected scrambling code in the third step is time-

C p (i ) = X 2 (i mod n 2 ) X 1 (i div n 2 ) , for i = 0 ... n-1 (1)

with two constituent sequences X1 and X2. This sequence allows a very efficient calculation of the correlation sum:
R( k ) = C p ( i ) * r( i + k ) =
n 1

H 0 = (1) H k 1 H k 1 Hk = H , k 1 k 1 H k 1

(6)

Denote the mth Hadamard sequence as a row of H8 numbered from the top, m = 0, 1, 2, , 255, in the sequel. Let hm(i) and i =0 n 1 z(i) denote the ith symbol of the sequence hm and z, n 1 X 2 ( i mod n 2 ) * X 1 ( i div n 2 ) * r( i + k ) = X 1 ( i ) * Rs( i * n 2 + k ) respectively where i = 0, 1, 2, , 255 and i = 0 corresponds i =0 i =0 to the leftmost symbol. (2) The kth SSC, Cssc,k, k = 1, 2, 3, , 16 is then defined as: Here r(k) is the received signal, R(k) the desired correlation sum starting at sampling time k and Rs are sub correlation Cssc,k = [hm (0 ) z (0 ), hm (1) z (1), , hm (255 )z (255 )] (7) sums defined as: where m=16(k1) and the leftmost chip in the sequence n2 corresponds to the chip transmitted first in time. (3) Rs( k' ) = X ( j ) * r( j + k' )
1

j =0

In this approach complexity of the 1st step is lowered by factor 8 and with sequences X1 = X2 = {1, 1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 1, -1, 1, 1, -1, 1, 1, 1, -1, 1} MES is -18.2 dB. Further in 3GPP paper [7] hierarchical Golay sequence approach is proposed for additional complexity reduction. Proposal is based on Budisins paper [8] where efficient correlator for Golay sequences is proposed. And finally, in latest technical specification for 3GPP PSC [2], it is constructed as a so-called generalised hierarchical Golay sequence. The sequence CPSC is constructed from two constituent sequences X1 and X2 of length n1 and n2 respectively using the equation (1). The constituent sequences X1 and X2 are chosen to be of length n1 = n2 =16. X1 is defined to be the length 16 (N(1)=4) Golay complementary sequence obtained by the delay matrix D(1) = [8, 4, 1,2] and weight matrix W(1) = [1, -1, 1, 1]. X2 is a generalised hierarchical sequence using the following formula, selecting s=2 and using the two Golay complementary sequences X3 and X4 as constituent sequences. The length of the sequence X3 and X4 is n3 and n4 respectively.
X 2 (i) = X 4 [i mod s + s (i div sn3 )] X 3 [(i div s) mod n3 ] , (4) i = 0 ... (n3 n4) - 1. X3 and X4 are defined to be identical and the length 4 (N(3)=N(4)=2) Golay complementary sequence obtained by the delay matrix D(3) = D(4) = [1,2] and weight matrix W(3) = W(4) = [1,1].

IV CORRELATION PROPERTIES
In order to provide reliable slot synchronisation and minimise cross-channel interference PSC and the SSCs should be orthogonal to it and to themselves. Also these sequences should exhibit small cross-correlation picks. To examine synchronisation channel characteristic autocorrelation of PSC and cross-correlation between PSC and PSC + SSCi is determined. Figure 4 shows the auto correlation of the primary synchronisation code. The sidelobes of the auto correlation function of the PSC are equals 64 (-12.04 dB) when main correlation peak is equal to 256.
300
mainlobe 256 (0 dB)

250

200

150
sidelobe 64 (-12.04 dB)

100

50

0 0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

The Golay complementary sequences X1, X3 and X4 are defined using the following recursive relation: X0(k) = (k) and b0(k) = (k); Xn(k) = Xn-1(k) + W
(j) (j) nbn-1(k-D n); (j)

Fig. 4: Autocorrelation of the PSC accepted by 3GPP. By definition, the PSC and SSCs are mutually orthogonal. However, the cross-correlation properties between the PSC and the SSCs are not very good. In some cases, the crosscorrelation values between PSC and SSCs can be up to 43% of the main peak of the PSC autocorrelation function. Table 1 shows the maximum absolute cross-correlation values of the PSC with SSCs. We can see from table that maximum of the cross-correlation values is 111 (-7.26 dB) for crosscorrelation with SCC #3 and 109 (-7.42 dB) for crosscorrelation with SSC #10. It has consequence on the level of maximum absolute correlation sidelobes of the PSC and PSC+SSCi (Table 2). In slot boundary detection the sidelobes interfere with main-lobes from other BSs.

(5)

bn(k) = Xn-1(k) - W nbn-1(k-D n); k = 0, 1, 2, , 2**N(j) -1; n = 1, 2, , N(j). The is Kronecker delta function. The Hadamard sequences are obtained as the rows in a matrix H8 constructed recursively by:

(j)

10

11 12 13 14 15 16

81 67 111 75 89 67 79 99 83 109 77 99 79 79 77 83

Tab. 1: Maximum absolute crosscorrelation of the PSC and SSCi. The first row is SSC number i.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

While poor cross-correlation properties between the PSC and SSCs are not fatal, it might have a negative impact on the performance of the cell acquisition depending on the integration period.

References
82 70 116 92 90 64 80 96 94 110 78 104 78 66 78 82

Tab. 2: Maximum absolute correlation sidelobes of the PSC and PSC+SSCi. The first row is SSC number i. Maximum values of the correlation sidelobes of the distinct SSCs are shown in Table 3. The cross-correlation of the SSCs is also high (up to 144). The normalised maximum correlation is 256, indicating that the cross-correlation could be only 5.0 dB below the main peak in the worst case. This would mean that if there is a second base station whose synchronisation channel (SCH) is received apart from the first base station, then depending the relative powers, base station two could interfere the stage 2 of acquisition for the first base station.
SSCi 1 2 3 4 5 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 1 64 96 96 96 2 96 64 96 96 80 80 80 96 96 96 3 96 96 80 96 80 80 4 96 96 80 80 96 96 96 64 5 6 80 80 96 96 7 80 80 8 80 80 96 96 96 96 96 80 80 96 80 96 9 96 80 96 96 80 80 10 80 96 96 96 80 96 11 96 96 96 64 12 96 64 13 14 80 15 16 80 80 112 80 80 80 112 112 80 112 96 80 80 96 96 96 96 96 80 80 96

96 112

96 112 96 112 80 80

80 112 80 128 80 96 96 80 96 96 80 80 80 96 96 64 96 96 96 80 80 96

80 112 96 96

96 112

80 128

80 112 80 80 96 80 96 96

80 112 96 96 80 80

80 144 80 80 96 64

6 112

96 112

80 144

80 112 96 96 96 64

96 112 144

96 112

96 112

96 112 80 144 80 80 80 96 96 80 80

96 144 96 112 96 96 96 96 96 64

80 112 64 112 96 96 96 80 80 80 96 80 96 96 80

96 144 112

96 112

80 144 96 80 96 96

64 112 80 96

80 112 96 80 64 96

96 144 80 80

96 112

80 112

[1] C. stberg, Y. E. Wang and F. Janecke, Performance and Complexity of Techniques for Achieving Fast Sector Identification in an Asynchronous CDMA System, Proc. of Personal Multimedia Communications Conference, Yukosuka, November, 1998 [2] 3GPP Tech. Spec, Spreading and modulation (FDD), 3G TS 25.213 V5.2.0 (2002-09) [3] S. Sriram, S. Hosur, Cyclically Permutable Codes for Rapid Acquisition in DS-CDMA Systems with Asynchronous Base Stations, IEEE Journal on selected areas in communications, Vol.19, No. 1, January 2001, pp. 83-94 [4] ETSI STC SMG2 UMTS-L1, Tdoc SMG2 221/98 UTRA Physical Layer Description FDD parts (v0.4) [5] ETSI STC SMG2 UMTS L1, Tdoc SMG2 427/98 A new correlation sequence for the Primary Synchronisation Code with good correlation properties and low detector complexity [6] ETSI SMG2 UMTS L1, Tdoc SMG2 323/98,An orthogonal set of codes for SCH with good correlation properties and low detector complexity [7] 3GPP TSG-RAN WG1-554/99, Generalised Hierarchical Golay Sequence for PSC with low complexity correlation using pruned efficient Golay correlators [8] S.Z.Budisin, "Efficient pulse compressor for Golay complementary sequences", Electronics Letters, Vol.27, No.3, pp.219-220, Jan. 1991. [9] Y.P.E.Wang, T.Ottosson, Cell Search in W-CDMA, IEEE Journal on selected areas in communications, Vol.18, No. 8, August 2000, pp. 1470-1482

80 112 80

80 112 80 128

96 112 112 96 80 80 96

14 112 15 112 16

80 112

96 112

96 112

80 112

80 112 128

80 112

ABSTRACT: In asynchronous system such as W-CDMA neighbouring base stations use different spreading codes and mobile station first have to determine the spreading code used by BSs to which it has the lowest path loss. The acquisition process is conducted in three-step search procedure. To facilitate that, BS transmit synchronisation channel. Two synchronisation codes are used in synchronisation channel. It is important to select primary synchronisation code (PSC) with good autocorrelation properties and secondary synchronisation codes (SSC) to have very small cross-correlation with each other and with the PSC. The less strong paths from handover candidates base stations (cells) can be masked with autocorrelation sidelobes. In this paper correlation properties of the PSC and SSCs are investigated. Current 3GPP technical specification for synchronisation sequences mostly takes care of the acquisition hardware complexity on the MS side while MAS of the PSC and cross correlation values of the SSCs are not as low as desired.

Tab. 3: Maximum absolute correlation sidelobes of the SSC and SSCi. The first row and column is SSC number i. The main peak of an SSC correlation with itself is 256.

V CONCLUSION
In the cell search scheme previously proposed for W-CDMA, where Gold codes were used for the PSC, the crosscorrelation peaks between the PSC and the SSCs were relatively small [6]. However, the hierarchical Golay sequences suggested in [7] significantly reduce the complexity of implementation for the Primary SCH and are therefore seen as highly desirable. The feature of the complementary Golay sequences that sum of their autocorrelation functions is equal to zero for all shifts except zero [8] is not used in PSC sequences design. Only focus in sequence choice was on correlator complexity. Our analysis of the existing Synchronisation Channel has revealed that the MAS of the PSC and cross correlation values of the SSCs are not as low as desired.

KORELACIONA SVOJSTVA KODOVA ZA SINHRONIZACIJU U W-CDMA Igor S. Simi}