Network Synchronization of an Orthogonal CDMA Satellite Communication System

This paper provides the network synchronization of an orthogonal CDMA geostationary satellite system for fixed service communications. It includes the synchronization procedures, the system architecture and the performance evaluation. The main objective is to provide network wide synchronization of all uplink orthogonal CDMA transmissions. This is achieved in steps; first by providing coarse synchronization using the uplink random access channel and then fine sync using innovative tracking control mechanisms. The uplink access channel receiver utilize a parallel/serial search method for rapid code acquisition, while the code tracking of the uplink orthogonal CDMA traffic channel is based on a delay feedback early-late gate in which the sych control resides in the receiver. The proposed system is designed to minimize the onboard complexity and satisfy the performance requirements. As shown in the performance section, the requirement that all uplink transmissions are synchronized to a reference time within 10% of the chip length can be achieved. In addition, the system analysis determines the design parameters values which optimize performance.