A block zero-padding method based on DCFT for L1 parameter estimations in weak signal and high dynamic environments

Abstract

Weak L1 signal acquisition in a high dynamic environment primarily faces a challenge: the integration peak is negatively influenced by the possible bit sign reversal every 20 ms and the frequency error. The block accumulating semi-coherent integration of correlations (BASIC) is a state-of-the-art method, but calculating the inter-block conjugate products restricts BASIC in a low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) acquisition. We propose a block zero-padding method based on a discrete chirp-Fourier transform (DCFT) for parameter estimations in weak signal and high dynamic environments. Compared with the conventional receiver architecture that uses closed-loop acquisition and tracking, it is more suitable for open-loop acquisition. The proposed method combines DCFT and block zero-padding. In this way, the post-correlation signal is coherently post-integrated with the bit sequence stripped off, and the high dynamic parameters are precisely estimated using the threshold set based on a false alarm probability. In addition, the detection performance of the proposed method is analyzed. Simulation results show that compared with the BASIC method, the proposed method can precisely detect the high dynamic parameters in lower SNR when the length of the received signal is fixed.