Multi-user receivers for a multiple-access system based on chaotic sequences on unknown asynchronous frequency-selective channels

This article deals with the problem of multi-user detection for a chaos-based multiple-access system, using a Differential Chaos Shift Keying (DCSK) modulation. The transmission channels are frequency-selective (multipath), and the channel characteristics (gains and delays) are unknown at the receiver side. It is only assumed that estimates of the minimum and maximum delays are available, only for the channel corresponding to the user of interest. Under such assumptions, a least-mean-square detector is derived, whose theoretical performances are provided. This detector is compared with the detector obtained when the delays are known, and with the LMMSE detector, for which all system parameters are available. The theoretical analysis is confirmed by the simulation results, which show that the LMS detector is not dramatically degraded with respect to the LMMSE detector, and that it is quite robust with respect to poor accuracy of the delay estimation.