Basic Concept of Spread Spectrum Technology

Basic Concept of Spread Spectrum

Technology
Contents
1 Advantages of CDMA 2
1.1 Increased Capacity 2
1.1.1 Lowering Eb/NO 2
1.1.2 Voice Activity Detection 2
1.1.3 Power Control 2
1.2 Improved Call Quality 4
1.3 Simplified System Planning 4
1.4 Enhanced Privacy 4
1.5 Improved Coverage 4
1.6 Increased Portable Talk Time 4
1.7 Bandwidth on Demand 4
2 Spread Spectrum Technology 6
2.1 Properties of SS signals 8
2.2 Spread-Spectrum Multiple Access 10
2.2.1 Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum 10
2.2.2 Advantages of DS-SS 10
2.2.3 Disadvantages of DS-SS 10
2.3 Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum 12
2.3.1 Advantages of FH-SS 12
2.3.2 Disadvantages of FH-SS 12
2.4 Time Hopping Spread Spectrum (TH-SS) 14
2.4.1 Advantages of TH-SS 14
2.4.2 Disadvantages of TH-SS 14
2.5 Hybrid Systems 16
2.5.1 Advantages of H-SS 16
2.5.2 Disadvantages of H-SS 16

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1 Advantages of CDMA
When implemented in a cellular telephone system, CDMA technology offers
many benefits to meet Mobile Radio Requirements. The following is an overview
of the advantages of CDMA.

1.1 Increased Capacity

Capacity can be increased in cellular systems in one of two ways:
1. By getting more channels per MHz of spectrum
2. By getting more channels reuse per unit of geographic area
With CDMA, signals can be received in the presence of high levels of interference, All
users on a carrier share the same RF spectrum. The same CDMA RF carrier frequency is
used in every cell site, and in every sector of a sector cell site.
Increasing capacity in CDMA can be done by the following techniques: -

1.1.1 Lowering Eb/No

Eb/No provides a measure of the performance of a CDMA link between the mobile and
the cell. It is the ratio in dB between the energy of each information bit and the noise
spectral density. The noise is a combination of background interference and the
interference created by other users on the system.
CDMA describes Eb/No noise interference in terms of the Frame Erasure Rate (FER).
Using an interference threshold, the CDMA system erases frames of information that
contain too many errors. The FER, then, describes the number of frames that were erased
due to poor quality. Therefore, as the E b/No level increases, the FER decreases, and
system voice quality is improved.

1.1.2 Voice Activity Detection

When no voice activity is detected, the vocoder will drop its encoding rate, because there
is no reason to have high speed encoding of silence. The encoded rate can drop to1 kbps
or less. Thus the variable rate vocoder uses up channel capacity only as needed. Since the
level of "interference" created by all of the users directly determines system capacity, and
voice activity detection reduces the noise level in the system, capacity can be maximized.

1.1.3 Power Control

CDMA can also increase system capacity by using POWER CONTROL, which will be
discussed later.

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Fig.1

Fig.2

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1.2 Improved Call Quality

Cellular telephone systems using CDMA are able to provide higher quality sound and
fewer dropped calls than systems based on other technologies. Advanced error detection
and error correction schemes greatly increase the likelihood that frames are interpreted
correctly. Sophisticated vocoders offer high speed coding and reduce background noise.
CDMA takes advantage of various types of diversity to improve speech quality.

1.3 Simplified System Planning

All users on a CDMA carrier share the same RF spectrum.

1.4 Enhanced Privacy

CDMA is an “Anti Jamming” system. In addition, since the digitized frames of information
are spread across a wide slice of spectrum, it is unlikely that a casual eavesdropper will be
able to listen in on a conversation.

1.5 Improved Coverage

A CDMA cell site has a greater range than a typical analog or digital cell site. Therefore
fewer CDMA cell sites are required to cover the same area. Depending on system loading
and interference, the reduction in cells could be as much as 50% when compared to GSM!
CDMA's greater range is due to the fact that CDMA uses a more sensitive receiver than
other technologies.

1.6 Increased Portable Talk Time

Because of precise power control and other system characteristics, CDMA subscriber
units normally transmit at only a fraction of the power of analog and TDMA phones. This will
enable portables to have longer talk and standby time. (This direct comparison assumes, of
course, similar cell sizes between the CDMA and analog or TDMA systems.)

1.7 Bandwidth on Demand

A wideband CDMA channel provides a common resource that all mobiles in a system
utilize based on their own specific needs. At any given time, the portion of this "bandwidth
pool" that is not used by a given mobile is available for use by any other mobile. This
provides a tremendous amount of flexibility - a flexibility that can be exploited to provide
powerful features, such as higher data rate services. In addition, because mobiles utilize
the "bandwidth pool" independently, these features can easily coexist on the same CDMA

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Fig.3

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2 Spread Spectrum Technology

The major concern in Wireless is digital communication is efficient use of
Bandwidth and power. But there are scenarios where it is necessary to sacrifice
the efficient use for design considerations. One such scenario is secure communication in
hostile environment. This design objective is met using a modulation technique called as
Spread Spectrum (SS).

Defining Spread Spectrum

A complete definition to Spread Spectrum is in two parts

1. Spread Spectrum is a means of transmission in which the data sequences occupy a
bandwidth in excess of the minimum bandwidth necessary to send it.
2. Spread Spectrum is accomplished before transmission through the use of a code
that is independent of data sequences .The same code is used at the receiver to
despread the received signal so that the original data sequence may be recovered.
In CDMA each user is assigned a unique code sequence it uses to encode its
information-bearing signal. The receiver, knowing the code sequences of the user, decodes
a received signal after reception and recovers the original data. This is possible since the
crosscorrelations between the code of the desired user and the codes of the other users
are small. Since the bandwidth of the code signal is chosen to be much larger than the
bandwidth of the information-bearing signal, the encoding process enlarges (spreads) the
spectrum of the signal and is therefore also known as spread-spectrum modulation. The
resulting signal is also called a spread-spectrum signal, and CDMA is often denoted as
spread-spectrum multiple access (SSMA) the spectral spreading of the transmitted signal
gives to CDMA its multiple access capability. It is therefore important to know the
techniques necessary to generate spread-spectrum signals and the properties of these
signals. A spread-spectrum modulation technique must be fulfill two criteria:
The transmission bandwidth must be much larger than the information bandwidth.
The resulting radio-frequency bandwidth is determined by a function other than the
information being sent (so the bandwidth is statistically independent of the information
signal).
The ratio of transmitted bandwidth to information bandwidth is called the processing
gain, Gp, of the spread-spectrum system; the receiver correlates the received signal with a
synchronously generated replica of the spreading code to recover the original information-
bearing signal. This implies that the receiver must know the code used to modulate the
data.
Because of the coding and the resulting enlarged bandwidth, SS signals have a number
of properties that differ from the properties of narrowband signals. The most interesting
ones, from the communication systems point of view, are discussed below.

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Fig.4

Fig.5

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2.1 Properties of SS signals

• Multiple Access Capability
If multiple users transmit a spread-spectrum signal at the same time, the receiver will still
be able to distinguish between the users provided each user has a unique code that has a
sufficiently low cross-correlation with the other codes. Correlating the received signal with a
code signal from a certain user will then only despread the signal of this user, while the
other spread-spectrum signals will remain spread over a large bandwidth. Thus, within the
information bandwidth the power of the desired user will be larger than the interfering power
provided there are not too many interferers, and the desired signal can be extracted.
• Protection Against Multipath Interference
In a radio channel there is not just one path between a transmitter and receiver.
Due to reflections (and refractions) a signal will be received from a number of different
paths. The signals of the different paths are all copies of the same transmitted signal but
with different amplitudes, phases, delays, and arrival angles. Adding these signals at the
receiver will be constructive at some of the frequencies and destructive at others. In the
time domain, this results in a dispersed signal. Spread-spectrum modulation can combat
this multipath interference.
• Privacy & Interference Rejection
The transmitted signal can only be despread and the data recovered if the receiver
knows the code. Cross-correlating the code signal with a narrowband signal will spread the
power of the narrowband signal thereby reducing the interfering power in the information
bandwidth.
• Anti-Jamming capability
This is more or less the same as interference rejection except the interference is now
willfully inflicted on the system. It is this property, together with the next one, that makes
spread-spectrum modulation attractive for military applications.
• Low Propability of Interception
Because of its low power density, the spread-spectrum signal is difficult to detect and
intercept by a hostile listener.

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Fig.6

Fig.7

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2.2 Spread-Spectrum Multiple Access (SS-MA)

2.2.1 Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DS-SS)
In DS-CDMA the modulated information bearing signal (the data signal) is directly
modulated by a digital, discrete-time, discrete-valued code signal. The data signal can be
either analog or digital; in most cases it is digital.
In the case of a digital signal the data modulation is often omitted and the data signal is
directly multiplied by the code signal and the resulting signal modulates the wideband
carrier. It is from this direct multiplication that the direct sequence CDMA gets its name.
After transmission of the signal, the receiver uses coherent demodulation to despread
the SS signal, using a locally generated code sequence. To be able to perform the
dispreading operation, the receiver must not only know the code sequence used to spread
the signal, but the codes of the received signal and the locally generated code must also be
synchronized. This synchronization must be accomplished at the beginning of the reception
and maintained until the whole signal has been received. The code
synchronization/tracking block performs this operation. After despreading a data modulated
signal results, and after demodulation the original data can be recovered.

2.2.2 Advantages of DS-SS:

The generation of the coded signal is easy. It can be performed by a simple
multiplication.
Since only one carrier frequency has to be generated, the frequency synthesizer (carrier
generator) is simple.
Coherent demodulation of the DS signal is possible.
No synchronization among the users is necessary.

2.2.3 Disdvantages of DS-SS:

It is difficult to acquire and maintain the synchronization of the locally generated code
signal and the received signal. Synchronization has to be kept within a fraction of the chip
time.
For correct reception the synchronization error of locally generated code sequence and
the received code sequence must be very small, a fraction of the chip time.
The power received from users close to the base station is much higher than that
received from users further away. Since a user continuously transmits over the whole
bandwidth, a user close to the base will constantly create a lot of interference for users far
from the base station, making their reception impossible. This near-far effect can be solved
by applying a power control algorithm so that all users are received by the base station with
the same average power. However this control proves to be quite difficult.

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Fig.8

Fig.9

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2.3 FREQUENCY HOPPING Spread Spectrum (FH-SS)

In frequency hopping CDMA, the carrier frequency of the modulated information signal
is not constant but changes periodically. During time intervals T the carrier frequency
remains the same, but after each time interval the carrier hops to another (or possibly the
same) frequency. The hopping pattern is decided by the code signal.
If the hopping rate is (much) greater than the symbol rate, one speaks of a fast
frequency hopping (F-FH). In this case the carrier frequency changes a number of times
during the transmission of one symbol, so that one bit is transmitted in different
frequencies. If the hopping rate is (much) smaller than the symbol rate, one speaks of slow
frequency hopping (S-FH).

2.3.1 Advantages of FH-SS:

Synchronization is much easier with FH-CDMA than with DS-CDMA. With FH CDMA
synchronization has to be within a fraction of the hop time. Since spectral spreading is not
obtained by using a very high hopping frequency but by using a large hop-set, the hop time
will be much longer than the chip time of a DS-CDMA system. Thus, an FH-CDMA system
allows a larger synchronization error.
The different frequency bands that an FH signal can occupy do not have to be
contiguous because we can make the frequency synthesizer easily skip over certain parts
of the spectrum. Combined with the easier synchronization, this allows much higher
spread-spectrum bandwidths.
The probability of multiple users transmitting in the same frequency band at the same
time is small. A user transmitting far from the base station will be received by it even if
users close to the base station are transmitting, since those users will probably be
transmitting at different frequencies. Thus, the near-far performance is much better than
that of DS.
Because of the larger possible bandwidth a FH system can employ, it offers a higher
possible reduction of narrowband interference than a DS system.

2.3.2 Disdvantages of FH-SS:

A highly sophisticated frequency synthesizer is necessary.
An abrupt change of the signal when changing frequency

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Fig.10

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2.4 TIME HOPPING Spread Spectrum (TH-SS)

In time hopping CDMA the data signal is transmitted in rapid bursts at time intervals
determined by the code assigned to the user. The time axis is divided into frames, and
each frame is divided into M time slots. During each frame the user will transmit in one of
the M time slots. Which of the M time slots is transmitted depends on the code signal
assigned to the user. Since a user transmits all of its data in one, instead of M time slots,
the frequency it needs for its transmission has increased by a factor M.

2.4.1 Advantages of TH-SS:

Implementation is simpler than that of FH-CDMA and the near-far problem is much less
of a problem since TH-CDMA is an avoidance system, so most of the time a terminal far
from the base station transmits alone, and is not hindered by transmissions from stations
close by.
The multiple access capability of THSS signals is acquired in the same manner as that of
the FH-SS signals; namely, by making the probability of users’ transmissions in the same
frequency band at the same time small. In the case of time hopping all transmissions are in
the same frequency band, so the probability of more than one transmission at the same
time must be small. This is again achieved by assigning different codes to different users. If
multiple transmissions do occur, error-correcting codes ensure that the desired signal can
still be recovered. If there is synchronization among the users, and the assigned codes are
such that no more than one user transmits at a particular slot, then the THCDMA reduces
to a TDMA scheme where the slot in which a user transmits is not fixed but changes from
frame to frame.

2.4.2 Disdvantages of TH-SS:

In the time hopping CDMA, a signal is transmitted in reduced time. The signaling rate,
therefore, increases and dispersion of the signal will now lead to overlap of adjacent bits.
Therefore, no advantage is to be gained with respect to multipath interference rejection.
It takes a long time before the code is synchronized, and the time in which the receiver
has to perform the synchronization is short.
If multiple transmissions occur, a large number of data bits are lost, so a good error-
correcting code and data interleaving are necessary.

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Fig.11

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2.5 HYBRID SYSTEMS

The hybrid CDMA systems include all CDMA systems that employ a combination of two
or more of the above-mentioned spread-spectrum modulation techniques or a combination
of CDMA with some other multiple access technique. By combining the basic spread-
spectrum modulation techniques, we have four possible hybrid systems:
DS/FH, DS/TH, FH/TH, and DS/FH/TH; and by combining CDMA with TDMA or
multicarrier modulation we get two more:
CDMA/TDMA and MC-CDMA. The idea of the hybrid system is to combine the specific
advantages of each of the modulation techniques.

2.5.1 Advantages of H-SS:

If we take, for example, the combined DS/FH system we have the advantage of the anti-
multipath property of the DS system combined with the favorable near-far operation of the
FH system.

2.5.2 Disdvantages of H-SS:

Of course, the disadvantage lies in the increased complexity of the transmitter and
receiver.
Coherent demodulation is difficult because of the problems in maintaining phase
relationships during hopping.

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