A new preamble-based cell search algorithm for asynchronous MC-CDMA systems

In this paper, we propose a new cell search scheme for asynchronous multi-carrier (MC) CDMA systems. For initial cell search, the proposed scheme contains detection processes for symbol timing, fractional frequency offset, frame timing, cell-specific code group, integer frequency offset, and cell-specific code. In order to accomplish faster cell search by diminishing the effects of noise and interference, a new preamble structure with power-concentrated repeated symbols is proposed and efficient detection algorithms for the above parameters are also proposed. Then, the performances of the proposed cell search algorithms are evaluated in a multi-cell environment with 19-hexagonal cell layout. The proposed method can search the desired cell site nearly twice as fast as the conventional method when the cumulative cell detection probability is 0.95.