Cell search algorithms for the 3G long-term evolution

This article presents downlink initial synchronization and cell identification algorithms for long term evolution (LTE) of third-generation (3G) mobile communication systems, which are based on synchronization channel (SCH) and cell specific pilot symbols, respectively. The key features of the proposed scheme are: it can improve performance of the frequency synchronization through oversampling of the SCH, it can support a large number of target cells by modulating a cell-specific pilot sequence over two symbols within a subframe, and it can guarantee cell identification performance by maximally ratio combining the frequency domain differential cross-correlation. Simulations show that the proposed scheme has a potential use in 3G LTE.