Sequential PN Acquisition Scheme Based on a

Fuzzy Logic Controller

Rosa Maria Alsina, Jose Antonio Mor
an, and Joan Claudi Socor
o
Communications and Signal Theory Department,
Enginyeria i Arquitectura La Salle Universitat Ramon Llull,
Pg. Bonanova, 8 08022 Barcelona, Spain
{ralsina, moran, jclaudi}@salleURL.edu
Abstract. One of the most important problems to be solved in a DS-SS
system is the acquisition of the PN sequence. In time-varying environments this fact becomes even more important because the data decoding
depends on the performance of the acquisition and tracking. In this work
a new sequential acquisition system based on a fuzzy logic controller is
proposed. The fuzzy logic controller extracts rellevant information about
the transmission conditions improving the the stability and robustness
of the receiver.

Introduction

The acquisition system is the most sensitive stage in a spread spectrum receiver
[1, 2]. There are several schemes to deal with this problem. The most used is the
serial search strategy due to its low complexity, where the local code phase is
changed step by step in equal increments until the correct acquisition point is
found.
The serial search strategy has some drawbacks. The decisional system of
the acquisition state is a key process in the overall system performance. This
becomes more important when we deal with a time-varying channel, i.e. ionospheric channel. Several factors contribute to the randomness of the acquistion
problem [3] i.e. uncertainty about the code phase, channel distorsion, noise and
interference, data randomness and unknown carrier phase and doppler oset.
In our system, a ionospheric channel acquisition strategy is studied [11, 12,
13] dealing especially with the specic problems of ionospheric transmission, as
channel distorsion and multipath. In this paper, a brief review of serial search
acquisition strategies is made in section 2, a new fuzzy logic controller for the
acquisition stage is presented in section 3 and some results of the tests made on
the proposal are shown in section 4.

Serial Search Acquisition Improvements

The stucture of a serial search system is shown in gure 1. Once obtained the
energy estimation, the system must decide whether it is acquired or not. A
threshold value is needed for this purpose.
J. Cabestany, A. Prieto, and D.F. Sandoval (Eds.): IWANN 2005, LNCS 3512, pp. 12381245, 2005.
c Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005

Sequential PN Acquisition Scheme Based on a Fuzzy Logic Controller

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Fig. 1. Serial search strategy for spread spectrum acquistion

Fig. 2. AD-TLC acquisition scheme [4]

Firstly, the threshold level will be set to a constant value, without taking
into account the received signal power or the noise level. Despite it is not an
optimal solution when working with a fading channel, it is the most used in
conventional systems due to its simplicity. The second approach was presented
in [4] with some approximations to Automatic Decision Threshold Level Control
(AD-TLC) (see gure 2).
There are some dierences between both structures. The AD-TLC consists
on two branches of a serial search model, controlled by dierent versions of the
same PN sequence. The aim of the structure is to reach acquisition in the upper
branch and the lower branch is used as a noise power reference, preventing both
branches from being acquired simultaneously. This brings us to the Constant
False Alarm Algorithm (CFAR)[4].
The goal of CFAR algorithm is to adapt the threshold value dynamically
to keep a parameter called Pf a 1 in a constant value. In that algorithm [4] the
desired Pf a is set by the quotient Rr where r and R are integer parameters set
by the controller. So the algorithm operates in the following way:
The parameter y = min(ener1 , ener2 ) is evaluated at each integration time
d where ener1 and ener2 are the energies of both branches. This value is
used as an estimation of the received noise level.
1

False Alarm Probability.

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R.M. Alsina, J.A. Mor

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o

After R integration times, y will resume the number of times that the noise
y
level is being over the threshold. The quotient R
is an estimation of the Pf a ,
r
which optimum value is R .
The current threshold is increased if the estimated Pf a is greater than the
desired or decreased if its lower.
This algorithm has been tested over the ionospheric communication channel
presented in [11]. The results show that the acquisition scheme is too slow in
most situations. This can be overcome by the use of an adaptive step depending
on the dierence of the instantaneous Pf a and the desired one. Another problem
of this algorithm is that the control system waits R integration times to operate,
so there is a compromise between the tracking speed and the robustness of the
estimations.
Our proposal to improve the behaviour of the receiver is a dynamical estimation of Pf a using a low pass lter (LPF). This lter dynamically estimates the
mean value of y, so the computation time is then reduced. The knowledge of the
dynamical response of the lter will help us in the controller design, choosing a
classical PI2 controller will be used for this purpose.
Some dierences are shown between the features of the original CFAR controller and our improved system, because the problem of the original CFAR is its
high dependence on the parameters R and r. The use of a low-pass lter provides
a robust and dynamical estimation of the Pf a , improving the acquisition time.
Other possibilities have been investigated to improve the results achieved
with the PI controller. Fuzzy logic controllers oered better results but they
needed higher computational load.

The Fuzzy Logic Controller

Up to this point we have to deal with the problem of setting the correct threshold.
This can be achieved with a CFAR algorithm as we have seen in the previous
section. Nevertheless, the use of this serial search scheme does not oer the
optimum performance. Its response highly depends on the channel variability
and this dicults the design of the parameters of the serial search acquisition
system.
A symbol time can be considered as a good choice for the integration time (d )
as results show. On the other hand, it also simplies the design of the receiver
blocks. Nevertheless, depending on the transmission conditions (SNR) this time
may not be enough. At low signal to noise ratios a longer time must be used.
The use of a sequential algorithm can overcome this problem using a variable
integration time depending on the measures reliability.
It is known in [2] than the sequential method is optimum at known signal
to noise ratios (SNR). This is not the case through a ionospheric channel as
deep fading cause high SNR uctuations [11]. Nevertheless, the structure of the
2

Proportional integral.

Sequential PN Acquisition Scheme Based on a Fuzzy Logic Controller

1241

receiver provides a measure of the received noise level. This value can be used
to improve dynamically the system performance.
In a serial search method the decision is just taken depending on the measured
value against the threshold. If it is higher an acquisition state is set and the other
way round. A few amount of information is being used so the performance is far
from the optimal. A logical reasoning system based on fuzzy logic theory [5, 6]
has been developed to improve the system results using the knowledge about
the channel. The reasoning system consists in a set of logical laws that generate
a nal decision [7]. Other examples of fuzzy logic applied to spread spectrum
communications can be found, especially working in detection [9, 10].
In our case the result of the fuzzy logic controller is a variable actresult [0, 2]
and its value is proportional to the probability of being acquired: on low probability of acquistion situations a value lower than the one is generated depending
on the input values and the other way round. Each integration time d a sequence
dec[n] = dec[n 1] actresult is updated. Considering the case of boundary values
for the variable, some limits have been set using the channel behaviour knowledge. If the sequence value is higher than 1.8 an acquisition state is set. On the
other hand, a non-acquisition state is reached if the sequence is lower than 0.2.
For example, if the fuzzy logic controller gives a value equal to 1.9 an acquisition will be set only in one step. Otherwise the system waits for another value.
Depending if it is greater or lower than the one the sequence will increase or
decrease its nal value. A positive slope will take us to an acquisition state and
a negative slope to a non-acquisition.

Fig. 3. Result computation for the fuzzy logic controller

Finally, we must design the rules to set an optimal reasoning control logic.
In our case four rules have been used. More rules can be added if necessary on
future implementations. However, the use of a great set of rules will increase
the computational cost, so we must take care about this fact. In gure 3 we can

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R.M. Alsina, J.A. Mor

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o

Fig. 4. actresult in function of ener1 and ener2

see the fuzzy logic controller implemented. Three dierent parameters control
the acquisition algorithm as can be seen in gure 3. The variables used in the
ener1
ener2
1
, threshold
and ener
controller are the ratios threshold
ener2 . The variables were selected
using the knowledge about the system performance.
The input variables are used in the following way:
ener1
ener2
and threshold
. If the rst ratio is greater
The rst law uses the ratio threshold
than one and the second one is lower there is a high probability of being
acquired.
The second law is active when ener1 is near the threshold. Then the ratio
ener1
ener2 is compared to one. If it is bigger than one the system is probably
acquired, but maybe the threshold is not set on its optimum value, i.e. there
is a fading.
1
If ener1 is lower than the threshold and ener
ener2 is nearly one it shows than
both measures of energy are nearly equal and lower than the threshold. The
system is in a non-acquisition situation.
1
Similar to the one above but now ener
ener2 is greater than one. The threshold
is not correct but we may be acquired, as there is a great dierence between
ener1 and ener2 .

The results will be obtained using a defuzzycation method based on the

centroid [8]. The parameters have been used in order to generate a set of laws
that control the acquistion system. The advantage of this system is that some
impossible situations in a single dwell can be evaluated. The use of three dierent
parameters gives us more information about the channel state and we can apply
a dierent criterion depending on the values of this parameters as gure 4 shows.
As a conclusion the reasoning capability of the receiver has been increased.

Sequential PN Acquisition Scheme Based on a Fuzzy Logic Controller

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Results

In this section the results obtained with the new acquisition approach will be
summarized. One of the most severe problems found was that the variations on
the signal to noise ratio had a direct inuence on the performance of the system.
The results obtained with this new system oer better stability to the acquisition system. In the ionospheric channel it is very important to keep acquired
until there is an evidence of being lost. This needs to have a system evaluating
the situation and taking the suitable decision. On the other hand, the reliability
of the measures is not always the same, because it depends on the channel state.
The sequential algorithm takes a variable time to conclude the acquisition state
depending on the channel conditions. If we have a good signal to noise ratio a
short time will be used. On the other hand we will wait until we are sure about
the decision.
The nal implementation of this new approach has increased the mean time
of the system remaining acquired. Simulations have been done up to -17dBs
of signal to noise ratio and good results have been obtained through a white
gaussian channel. Obviously, the results are better than those of the CFAR
algorithm. In the gure 5 we can see some results of the proposed algorithm
compared to the CFAR.

Fig. 5. Mean time of acquisition pdf  s for CFAR and Fuzzy Logic Controller

As we can see, the mean time of acquisition is highly improved with the new
approach. Its also important to remark that the Pf a is even decreased with the
use of the new approach. Nevertheless, at low SNR the algorithm is a bit slower
in the initial synchronization due to the fuzzy logic controller.

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R.M. Alsina, J.A. Mor

an, and J.C. Socor
o

Conclusions

Up to this point we have seen the process to develop the new proposed acquisition
system and some results have been compared against other strategies. The main
advantage of a sequential fuzzy logic based algorithm is its robustness. When it
is acquired it is really dicult to leave this state even with low signal to noise
ratios. This is very important when working with the ionospheric channel as the
SNR is variable with time.
To ght against this problem the system uses a time varying integration.
Depending on the conditions a variable is generated as an indicator of the probability of being acquired. This variable is modied on a sequential way reaching
a great value of condence. Then the system makes the decision. Although its
good response when the system is acquired we should take into account that the
rst acquisition time is just a bit higher. This is not an important fact in our
channel and in our application. The reason is that the rst acquisition is going
to happen fewer times than the reacquisition so we have an improvement on the
total mean value. On the other hand, when a non-acquisition happens there are
optimal strategies to search the correct position.
There are very important points that we must take care about. The computational load of developing a fuzzy logic controller on a DSP is very important. The
mean number of FLOPS needed to do all the process related to fuzzy controller
is greater compared to the conventional serial search system (including CFAR
algorithm). In our experiments, we have used the received samples of the ionospheric transmission and we have processed them oine on a PC. Nevertheless,
it is important to remark that some criterions can be used on the design of the
controller to reduce the total number of operations. Some of them have already
been used, and others will be implemented in future work, but the number of
FLOPS is still too high.
As a nal conclusion a new proposal for acquisition system with very good
performance on a highly varying channel has been proposed. We must remark
that although the cost is high over a serial search method is far away from the
cost of a parallel strategy. On the other hand a new line of investigation has
been opened to motivate the use of logical reasoning systems on the acquisition
schemes. In our opinion the fuzzy logic theory is the best way to transfer the
expert knowledge about the channel to a set of logical rules.

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