Code division multiple access
Encyclopedia
Code division multiple access (CDMA) is a channel access method
used by various radio communication technologies. It should not be confused with the mobile phone standards called cdmaOne
, CDMA2000
(the 3G
evolution of cdmaOne) and WCDMA (the 3G standard used by GSM carriers), which are often referred to as simply CDMA, and use CDMA as an underlying channel access method.
One of the basic concepts in data communication is the idea of allowing several transmitters to send information simultaneously over a single communication channel. This allows several users to share a band of frequencies (see bandwidth). This concept is called multiple access. CDMA employs spread-spectrum technology and a special coding scheme (where each transmitter is assigned a code) to allow multiple users to be multiplexed over the same physical channel. By contrast, time division multiple access
(TDMA) divides access by time
, while frequency-division multiple access
(FDMA) divides it by frequency
. CDMA is a form of spread-spectrum
signalling, since the modulated coded signal has a much higher data bandwidth
than the data being communicated.
An analogy to the problem of multiple access is a room (channel) in which people wish to talk to each other simultaneously. To avoid confusion, people could take turns speaking (time division), speak at different pitches (frequency division), or speak in different languages (code division). CDMA is analogous to the last example where people speaking the same language can understand each other, but other languages are perceived as noise
and rejected. Similarly, in radio CDMA, each group of users is given a shared code. Many codes occupy the same channel, but only users associated with a particular code can communicate.
The technology of code division multiple access channels has long been known. In the USSR, the first work devoted to this subject was published in 1935 by professor D.V. Ageev. It was shown that through the use of linear methods, there are three types of signal separation: frequency, time and compensatory. The technology of CDMA was used in 1957, when the young military radio engineer Leonid Kupriyanovich in Moscow, made an experimental model of a wearable automatic mobile phone, called LK-1 by him, with a base station. LK-1 has a weight of 3 kg, 20-30 km operating distance, and 20-30 hours of battery life. The base station, as described by the author, could serve several customers. In 1958, Kupriyanovich made the new experimental "pocket" model of mobile phone. This phone weighed 0.5 kg. To serve more customers, Kupriyanovich proposed the device, named by him as correllator. In 1958, the USSR also started the development of the "Altay" national civil mobile phone service for cars, based on the Soviet MRT-1327 standard. The main developers of the Altay system were VNIIS (Voronezh Science Research Institute of Communications) and GSPI (State Specialized Project Institute). In 1963 this service started in Moscow and in 1970 Altay service was used in 30 USSR cities.
is XOR’ed with the code signal with pulse duration of 
. (Note: bandwidth is proportional to 
where 
= bit time) Therefore, the bandwidth of the data signal is 
and the bandwidth of the spread spectrum signal is 
. Since 
is much smaller than 
, the bandwidth of the spread spectrum signal is much larger than the bandwidth of the original signal. The ratio 
is called the spreading factor or processing gain and determines to a certain extent the upper limit of the total number of users supported simultaneously by a base station.
Each user in a CDMA system uses a different code to modulate their signal. Choosing the codes used to modulate the signal is very important in the performance of CDMA systems. The best performance will occur when there is good separation between the signal of a desired user and the signals of other users. The separation of the signals is made by correlating
the received signal with the locally generated code of the desired user. If the signal matches the desired user's code then the correlation function will be high and the system can extract that signal. If the desired user's code has nothing in common with the signal the correlation should be as close to zero as possible (thus eliminating the signal); this is referred to as cross correlation. If the code is correlated with the signal at any time offset other than zero, the correlation should be as close to zero as possible. This is referred to as auto-correlation and is used to reject multi-path interference.
In general, CDMA belongs to two basic categories: synchronous (orthogonal codes) and asynchronous (pseudorandom codes).
between vectors
representing the data strings. For example, binary string 1011 is represented by the vector (1, 0, 1, 1). Vectors can be multiplied by taking their dot product
, by summing the products of their respective components (for example, if u = (a, b) and v = (c, d), then their dot product u·v = ac + bd). If the dot product is zero, the two vectors are said to be orthogonal to each other. Some properties of the dot product aid understanding of how W-CDMA
works. If vectors a and b are orthogonal, then
and:
Each user in synchronous CDMA uses a code orthogonal to the others' codes to modulate their signal. An example of four mutually orthogonal digital signals is shown in the figure. Orthogonal codes have a cross-correlation equal to zero; in other words, they do not interfere with each other. In the case of IS-95 64 bit Walsh code
s are used to encode the signal to separate different users. Since each of the 64 Walsh codes are orthogonal to one another, the signals are channelized into 64 orthogonal signals. The following example demonstrates how each user's signal can be encoded and decoded.
Start with a set of vectors that are mutually orthogonal
. (Although mutual orthogonality is the only condition, these vectors are usually constructed for ease of decoding, for example columns or rows from Walsh matrices
.) An example of orthogonal functions is shown in the picture on the left. These vectors will be assigned to individual users and are called the code, chip
code, or chipping code. In the interest of brevity, the rest of this example uses codes, v, with only 2 bits.
Each user is associated with a different code, say v. A 1 bit is represented by transmitting a positive code, v, and a 0 bit is represented by a negative code, –v. For example, if v = (1, –1) and the data that the user wishes to transmit is (1, 0, 1, 1), then the transmitted symbols would be (v, –v, v, v) = (v0, v1, –v0, –v1, v0, v1, v0, v1) = (1, –1, –1, 1, 1, –1, 1, –1). For the purposes of this article, we call this constructed vector the transmitted vector.
Each sender has a different, unique vector v chosen from that set, but the construction method of the transmitted vector is identical.
Now, due to physical properties of interference, if two signals at a point are in phase, they add to give twice the amplitude of each signal, but if they are out of phase, they subtract and give a signal that is the difference of the amplitudes. Digitally, this behaviour can be modelled by the addition of the transmission vectors, component by component.
If sender0 has code (1, –1) and data (1, 0, 1, 1), and sender1 has code (1, 1) and data (0, 0, 1, 1), and both senders transmit simultaneously, then this table describes the coding steps:
Because signal0 and signal1 are transmitted at the same time into the air, they add to produce the raw signal:
+ (–1, –1, –1, –1, 1, 1, 1, 1) = (0, –2, –2, 0, 2, 0, 2, 0)
This raw signal is called an interference pattern. The receiver then extracts an intelligible signal for any known sender by combining the sender's code with the interference pattern, the receiver combines it with the codes of the senders. The following table explains how this works and shows that the signals do not interfere with one another:
Further, after decoding, all values greater than 0 are interpreted as 1 while all values less than zero are interpreted as 0. For example, after decoding, data0 is (2, –2, 2, 2), but the receiver interprets this as (1, 0, 1, 1). Values of exactly 0 means that the sender did not transmit any data, as in the following example:
Assume signal0 = (1, –1, –1, 1, 1, –1, 1, –1) is transmitted alone. The following table shows the decode at the receiver:
When the receiver attempts to decode the signal using sender1's code, the data is all zeros, therefore the cross correlation is equal to zero and it is clear that sender1 did not transmit any data.
in statistics). Gold code
s are an example of a PN suitable for this purpose, as there is low correlation between the codes. If all of the users are received with the same power level, then the variance (e.g., the noise power) of the MAI increases in direct proportion to the number of users. In other words, unlike synchronous CDMA, the signals of other users will appear as noise to the signal of interest and interfere slightly with the desired signal in proportion to number of users.
All forms of CDMA use spread spectrum
process gain
to allow receivers to partially discriminate against unwanted signals. Signals encoded with the specified PN sequence (code) are received, while signals with different codes (or the same code but a different timing offset) appear as wideband noise reduced by the process gain.
Since each user generates MAI, controlling the signal strength is an important issue with CDMA transmitters. A CDM (synchronous CDMA), TDMA, or FDMA receiver can in theory completely reject arbitrarily strong signals using different codes, time slots or frequency channels due to the orthogonality of these systems. This is not true for Asynchronous CDMA; rejection of unwanted signals is only partial. If any or all of the unwanted signals are much stronger than the desired signal, they will overwhelm it. This leads to a general requirement in any asynchronous CDMA system to approximately match the various signal power levels as seen at the receiver. In CDMA cellular, the base station uses a fast closed-loop power control scheme to tightly control each mobile's transmit power.
TDMA systems must carefully synchronize the transmission times of all the users to ensure that they are received in the correct timeslot and do not cause interference. Since this cannot be perfectly controlled in a mobile environment, each timeslot must have a guard-time, which reduces the probability that users will interfere, but decreases the spectral efficiency. Similarly, FDMA systems must use a guard-band between adjacent channels, due to the unpredictable doppler shift of the signal spectrum because of user mobility. The guard-bands will reduce the probability that adjacent channels will interfere, but decrease the utilization of the spectrum.
In other words, asynchronous CDMA is ideally suited to a mobile network where large numbers of transmitters each generate a relatively small amount of traffic at irregular intervals. CDM (synchronous CDMA), TDMA, and FDMA systems cannot recover the underutilized resources inherent to bursty traffic due to the fixed number of orthogonal codes, time slots or frequency channels that can be assigned to individual transmitters. For instance, if there are N time slots in a TDMA system and 2N users that talk half of the time, then half of the time there will be more than N users needing to use more than N timeslots. Furthermore, it would require significant overhead to continually allocate and deallocate the orthogonal code, time-slot or frequency channel resources. By comparison, asynchronous CDMA transmitters simply send when they have something to say, and go off the air when they don't, keeping the same PN signature sequence as long as they are connected to the system.
CDMA can also effectively reject narrow band interference. Since narrow band interference affects only a small portion of the spread spectrum signal, it can easily be removed through notch filtering without much loss of information. Convolution encoding and interleaving
can be used to assist in recovering this lost data. CDMA signals are also resistant to multipath fading. Since the spread spectrum signal occupies a large bandwidth only a small portion of this will undergo fading due to multipath at any given time. Like the narrow band interference this will result in only a small loss of data and can be overcome.
Another reason CDMA is resistant to multipath interference is because the delayed versions of the transmitted pseudo-random codes will have poor correlation with the original pseudo-random code, and will thus appear as another user, which is ignored at the receiver. In other words, as long as the multipath channel induces at least one chip of delay, the multipath signals will arrive at the receiver such that they are shifted in time by at least one chip from the intended signal. The correlation properties of the pseudo-random codes are such that this slight delay causes the multipath to appear uncorrelated with the intended signal, and it is thus ignored.
Some CDMA devices use a rake receiver
, which exploits multipath delay components to improve the performance of the system.
A rake receiver combines the information from several correlators, each one tuned to a different path delay, producing a stronger version of the signal than a simple receiver with a single correlation tuned to the path delay of the strongest signal.
Frequency reuse is the ability to reuse the same radio channel frequency at other cell sites within a cellular system. In the FDMA and TDMA systems frequency planning is an important consideration. The frequencies used in different cells must be planned carefully to ensure signals from different cells do not interfere with each other. In a CDMA system, the same frequency can be used in every cell, because channelization is done using the pseudo-random codes. Reusing the same frequency in every cell eliminates the need for frequency planning in a CDMA system; however, planning of the different pseudo-random sequences must be done to ensure that the received signal from one cell does not correlate with the signal from a nearby cell.
Since adjacent cells use the same frequencies, CDMA systems have the ability to perform soft hand offs. Soft hand offs allow the mobile telephone to communicate simultaneously with two or more cells. The best signal quality is selected until the hand off is complete. This is different from hard hand offs utilized in other cellular systems. In a hard hand off situation, as the mobile telephone approaches a hand off, signal strength may vary abruptly. In contrast, CDMA systems use the soft hand off, which is undetectable and provides a more reliable and higher quality signal.
Channel access method
In telecommunications and computer networks, a channel access method or multiple access method allows several terminals connected to the same multi-point transmission medium to transmit over it and to share its capacity...
used by various radio communication technologies. It should not be confused with the mobile phone standards called cdmaOne
IS-95
Interim Standard 95 is the first CDMA-based digital cellular standard by Qualcomm. The brand name for IS-95 is cdmaOne. IS-95 is also known as TIA-EIA-95....
, CDMA2000
CDMA2000
CDMA2000 is a family of 3G mobile technology standards, which use CDMA channel access, to send voice, data, and signaling data between mobile phones and cell sites. The set of standards includes: CDMA2000 1X, CDMA2000 EV-DO Rev. 0, CDMA2000 EV-DO Rev. A, and CDMA2000 EV-DO Rev. B...
(the 3G
3G
3G or 3rd generation mobile telecommunications is a generation of standards for mobile phones and mobile telecommunication services fulfilling the International Mobile Telecommunications-2000 specifications by the International Telecommunication Union...
evolution of cdmaOne) and WCDMA (the 3G standard used by GSM carriers), which are often referred to as simply CDMA, and use CDMA as an underlying channel access method.
One of the basic concepts in data communication is the idea of allowing several transmitters to send information simultaneously over a single communication channel. This allows several users to share a band of frequencies (see bandwidth). This concept is called multiple access. CDMA employs spread-spectrum technology and a special coding scheme (where each transmitter is assigned a code) to allow multiple users to be multiplexed over the same physical channel. By contrast, time division multiple access
Time division multiple access
Time division multiple access is a channel access method for shared medium networks. It allows several users to share the same frequency channel by dividing the signal into different time slots. The users transmit in rapid succession, one after the other, each using its own time slot. This...
(TDMA) divides access by time
Time
Time is a part of the measuring system used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify rates of change such as the motions of objects....
, while frequency-division multiple access
Frequency-division multiple access
Frequency Division Multiple Access or FDMA is a channel access method used in multiple-access protocols as a channelization protocol. FDMA gives users an individual allocation of one or several frequency bands, or channels. It is particularly commonplace in satellite communication. FDMA, like...
(FDMA) divides it by frequency
Frequency
Frequency is the number of occurrences of a repeating event per unit time. It is also referred to as temporal frequency.The period is the duration of one cycle in a repeating event, so the period is the reciprocal of the frequency...
. CDMA is a form of spread-spectrum
Spread spectrum
Spread-spectrum techniques are methods by which a signal generated in a particular bandwidth is deliberately spread in the frequency domain, resulting in a signal with a wider bandwidth...
signalling, since the modulated coded signal has a much higher data bandwidth
Bandwidth (computing)
In computer networking and computer science, bandwidth, network bandwidth, data bandwidth, or digital bandwidth is a measure of available or consumed data communication resources expressed in bits/second or multiples of it .Note that in textbooks on wireless communications, modem data transmission,...
than the data being communicated.
An analogy to the problem of multiple access is a room (channel) in which people wish to talk to each other simultaneously. To avoid confusion, people could take turns speaking (time division), speak at different pitches (frequency division), or speak in different languages (code division). CDMA is analogous to the last example where people speaking the same language can understand each other, but other languages are perceived as noise
Noise
In common use, the word noise means any unwanted sound. In both analog and digital electronics, noise is random unwanted perturbation to a wanted signal; it is called noise as a generalisation of the acoustic noise heard when listening to a weak radio transmission with significant electrical noise...
and rejected. Similarly, in radio CDMA, each group of users is given a shared code. Many codes occupy the same channel, but only users associated with a particular code can communicate.
The technology of code division multiple access channels has long been known. In the USSR, the first work devoted to this subject was published in 1935 by professor D.V. Ageev. It was shown that through the use of linear methods, there are three types of signal separation: frequency, time and compensatory. The technology of CDMA was used in 1957, when the young military radio engineer Leonid Kupriyanovich in Moscow, made an experimental model of a wearable automatic mobile phone, called LK-1 by him, with a base station. LK-1 has a weight of 3 kg, 20-30 km operating distance, and 20-30 hours of battery life. The base station, as described by the author, could serve several customers. In 1958, Kupriyanovich made the new experimental "pocket" model of mobile phone. This phone weighed 0.5 kg. To serve more customers, Kupriyanovich proposed the device, named by him as correllator. In 1958, the USSR also started the development of the "Altay" national civil mobile phone service for cars, based on the Soviet MRT-1327 standard. The main developers of the Altay system were VNIIS (Voronezh Science Research Institute of Communications) and GSPI (State Specialized Project Institute). In 1963 this service started in Moscow and in 1970 Altay service was used in 30 USSR cities.
Uses
- One of the early applications for code division multiplexing is in GPSGlobal Positioning SystemThe Global Positioning System is a space-based global navigation satellite system that provides location and time information in all weather, anywhere on or near the Earth, where there is an unobstructed line of sight to four or more GPS satellites...
. This predates and is distinct from its use in mobile phoneMobile phoneA mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...
s. - The QualcommQualcommQualcomm is an American global telecommunication corporation that designs, manufactures and markets digital wireless telecommunications products and services based on its code division multiple access technology and other technologies. Headquartered in San Diego, CA, USA...
standard IS-95IS-95Interim Standard 95 is the first CDMA-based digital cellular standard by Qualcomm. The brand name for IS-95 is cdmaOne. IS-95 is also known as TIA-EIA-95....
, marketed as cdmaOne. - The QualcommQualcommQualcomm is an American global telecommunication corporation that designs, manufactures and markets digital wireless telecommunications products and services based on its code division multiple access technology and other technologies. Headquartered in San Diego, CA, USA...
standard IS-2000, known as CDMA2000. This standard is used by several mobile phone companies, including the GlobalstarGlobalstarGlobalstar is a low Earth orbit satellite constellation for satellite phone and low-speed data communications, somewhat similar to the Iridium satellite constellation and Orbcomm satellite systems.-History:...
satellite phoneSatellite phoneA satellite telephone, satellite phone, or satphone is a type of mobile phone that connects to orbiting satellites instead of terrestrial cell sites...
network. - The UMTS 3G mobile phone standard, which uses W-CDMAW-CDMAW-CDMA , UMTS-FDD, UTRA-FDD, or IMT-2000 CDMA Direct Spread is an air interface standard found in 3G mobile telecommunications networks. It is the basis of Japan's NTT DoCoMo's FOMA service and the most-commonly used member of the UMTS family and sometimes used as a synonym for UMTS...
. - CDMA has been used in the OmniTRACS satellite system for transportation logistics.
Steps in CDMA Modulation
CDMA is a spread spectrum multiple access technique. A spread spectrum technique spreads the bandwidth of the data uniformly for the same transmitted power. A spreading code is a pseudo-random code that has a narrow Ambiguity function, unlike other narrow pulse codes. In CDMA a locally generated code runs at a much higher rate than the data to be transmitted. Data for transmission is combined via bitwise XOR (exclusive OR) with the faster code. The figure shows how a spread spectrum signal is generated. The data signal with pulse duration of is XOR’ed with the code signal with pulse duration of . (Note: bandwidth is proportional to where = bit time) Therefore, the bandwidth of the data signal is and the bandwidth of the spread spectrum signal is . Since is much smaller than , the bandwidth of the spread spectrum signal is much larger than the bandwidth of the original signal. The ratio is called the spreading factor or processing gain and determines to a certain extent the upper limit of the total number of users supported simultaneously by a base station.Each user in a CDMA system uses a different code to modulate their signal. Choosing the codes used to modulate the signal is very important in the performance of CDMA systems. The best performance will occur when there is good separation between the signal of a desired user and the signals of other users. The separation of the signals is made by correlating
Cross-correlation
In signal processing, cross-correlation is a measure of similarity of two waveforms as a function of a time-lag applied to one of them. This is also known as a sliding dot product or sliding inner-product. It is commonly used for searching a long-duration signal for a shorter, known feature...
the received signal with the locally generated code of the desired user. If the signal matches the desired user's code then the correlation function will be high and the system can extract that signal. If the desired user's code has nothing in common with the signal the correlation should be as close to zero as possible (thus eliminating the signal); this is referred to as cross correlation. If the code is correlated with the signal at any time offset other than zero, the correlation should be as close to zero as possible. This is referred to as auto-correlation and is used to reject multi-path interference.
In general, CDMA belongs to two basic categories: synchronous (orthogonal codes) and asynchronous (pseudorandom codes).
Code division multiplexing (Synchronous CDMA)
Synchronous CDMA exploits mathematical properties of orthogonalityOrthogonality
Orthogonality occurs when two things can vary independently, they are uncorrelated, or they are perpendicular.-Mathematics:In mathematics, two vectors are orthogonal if they are perpendicular, i.e., they form a right angle...
between vectors
Coordinate vector
In linear algebra, a coordinate vector is an explicit representation of a vector in an abstract vector space as an ordered list of numbers or, equivalently, as an element of the coordinate space Fn....
representing the data strings. For example, binary string 1011 is represented by the vector (1, 0, 1, 1). Vectors can be multiplied by taking their dot product
Dot product
In mathematics, the dot product or scalar product is an algebraic operation that takes two equal-length sequences of numbers and returns a single number obtained by multiplying corresponding entries and then summing those products...
, by summing the products of their respective components (for example, if u = (a, b) and v = (c, d), then their dot product u·v = ac + bd). If the dot product is zero, the two vectors are said to be orthogonal to each other. Some properties of the dot product aid understanding of how W-CDMA
W-CDMA
W-CDMA , UMTS-FDD, UTRA-FDD, or IMT-2000 CDMA Direct Spread is an air interface standard found in 3G mobile telecommunications networks. It is the basis of Japan's NTT DoCoMo's FOMA service and the most-commonly used member of the UMTS family and sometimes used as a synonym for UMTS...
works. If vectors a and b are orthogonal, then
and:Each user in synchronous CDMA uses a code orthogonal to the others' codes to modulate their signal. An example of four mutually orthogonal digital signals is shown in the figure. Orthogonal codes have a cross-correlation equal to zero; in other words, they do not interfere with each other. In the case of IS-95 64 bit Walsh code
Walsh code
In coding theory, the Walsh–Hadamard code, named after the American mathematician Joseph Leonard Walsh and the French mathematician Jacques Hadamard, is an example of a linear code over a binary alphabet that maps messages of length n to codewords of length 2^n...
s are used to encode the signal to separate different users. Since each of the 64 Walsh codes are orthogonal to one another, the signals are channelized into 64 orthogonal signals. The following example demonstrates how each user's signal can be encoded and decoded.
Example
Orthogonality
Orthogonality occurs when two things can vary independently, they are uncorrelated, or they are perpendicular.-Mathematics:In mathematics, two vectors are orthogonal if they are perpendicular, i.e., they form a right angle...
. (Although mutual orthogonality is the only condition, these vectors are usually constructed for ease of decoding, for example columns or rows from Walsh matrices
Walsh matrix
In mathematics, a Walsh matrix is a specific square matrix, with dimensions a power of 2, the entries of which are +1 or −1, and the property that the dot product of any two distinct rows is zero. The Walsh matrix was proposed by Joseph Leonard Walsh in 1923...
.) An example of orthogonal functions is shown in the picture on the left. These vectors will be assigned to individual users and are called the code, chip
Chip (CDMA)
In digital communications, a chip is a pulse of a direct-sequence spread spectrum code, such as a pseudo-noise code sequence used in direct-sequence code division multiple access channel access techniques....
code, or chipping code. In the interest of brevity, the rest of this example uses codes, v, with only 2 bits.
Each user is associated with a different code, say v. A 1 bit is represented by transmitting a positive code, v, and a 0 bit is represented by a negative code, –v. For example, if v = (1, –1) and the data that the user wishes to transmit is (1, 0, 1, 1), then the transmitted symbols would be (v, –v, v, v) = (v0, v1, –v0, –v1, v0, v1, v0, v1) = (1, –1, –1, 1, 1, –1, 1, –1). For the purposes of this article, we call this constructed vector the transmitted vector.
Each sender has a different, unique vector v chosen from that set, but the construction method of the transmitted vector is identical.
Now, due to physical properties of interference, if two signals at a point are in phase, they add to give twice the amplitude of each signal, but if they are out of phase, they subtract and give a signal that is the difference of the amplitudes. Digitally, this behaviour can be modelled by the addition of the transmission vectors, component by component.
If sender0 has code (1, –1) and data (1, 0, 1, 1), and sender1 has code (1, 1) and data (0, 0, 1, 1), and both senders transmit simultaneously, then this table describes the coding steps:
| Step | Encode sender0 | Encode sender1 |
| 0 | code0 = (1, –1), data0 = (1, 0, 1, 1) | code1 = (1, 1), data1 = (0, 0, 1, 1) |
| 1 | encode0 = 2(1, 0, 1, 1) – (1, 1, 1, 1) (–1, –1, –1, –1, 1, 1, 1, 1) |
Because signal0 and signal1 are transmitted at the same time into the air, they add to produce the raw signal:
+ (–1, –1, –1, –1, 1, 1, 1, 1) = (0, –2, –2, 0, 2, 0, 2, 0)
This raw signal is called an interference pattern. The receiver then extracts an intelligible signal for any known sender by combining the sender's code with the interference pattern, the receiver combines it with the codes of the senders. The following table explains how this works and shows that the signals do not interfere with one another:
| Step | Decode sender0 | Decode sender1 |
| 0 | code0 = (1, –1), signal = (0, –2, –2, 0, 2, 0, 2, 0) | code1 = (1, 1), signal = (0, –2, –2, 0, 2, 0, 2, 0) |
| 1 | decode0 = pattern.vector0 | decode1 = pattern.vector1 |
| 2 | decode0 = ((0, –2), (–2, 0), (2, 0), (2, 0)).(1, –1) | decode1 = ((0, –2), (–2, 0), (2, 0), (2, 0)).(1, 1) |
| 3 | decode0 = ((0 + 2), (–2 + 0), (2 + 0), (2 + 0)) | decode1 = ((0 – 2), (–2 + 0), (2 + 0), (2 + 0)) |
| 4 | data0=(2, –2, 2, 2), meaning (1, 0, 1, 1) | data1=(–2, –2, 2, 2), meaning (0, 0, 1, 1) |
Further, after decoding, all values greater than 0 are interpreted as 1 while all values less than zero are interpreted as 0. For example, after decoding, data0 is (2, –2, 2, 2), but the receiver interprets this as (1, 0, 1, 1). Values of exactly 0 means that the sender did not transmit any data, as in the following example:
Assume signal0 = (1, –1, –1, 1, 1, –1, 1, –1) is transmitted alone. The following table shows the decode at the receiver:
| Step | Decode sender0 | Decode sender1 |
| 0 | code0 = (1, –1), signal = (1, –1, –1, 1, 1, –1, 1, –1) | code1 = (1, 1), signal = (1, –1, –1, 1, 1, –1, 1, –1) |
| 1 | decode0 = pattern.vector0 | decode1 = pattern.vector1 |
| 2 | decode0 = ((1, –1), (–1, 1), (1, –1), (1, –1)).(1, –1) | decode1 = ((1, –1), (–1, 1), (1, –1), (1, –1)).(1, 1) |
| 3 | decode0 = ((1 + 1), (–1 – 1),(1 + 1), (1 + 1)) | decode1 = ((1 – 1), (–1 + 1),(1 – 1), (1 – 1)) |
| 4 | data0 = (2, –2, 2, 2), meaning (1, 0, 1, 1) | data1 = (0, 0, 0, 0), meaning no data |
When the receiver attempts to decode the signal using sender1's code, the data is all zeros, therefore the cross correlation is equal to zero and it is clear that sender1 did not transmit any data.
Asynchronous CDMA
When mobile-to-base links cannot be precisely coordinated, particularly due to the mobility of the handsets, a different approach is required. Since it is not mathematically possible to create signature sequences that are both orthogonal for arbitrarily random starting points and which make full use of the code space, unique "pseudo-random" or "pseudo-noise" (PN) sequences are used in asynchronous CDMA systems. A PN code is a binary sequence that appears random but can be reproduced in a deterministic manner by intended receivers. These PN codes are used to encode and decode a user's signal in Asynchronous CDMA in the same manner as the orthogonal codes in synchronous CDMA (shown in the example above). These PN sequences are statistically uncorrelated, and the sum of a large number of PN sequences results in multiple access interference (MAI) that is approximated by a Gaussian noise process (following the central limit theoremCentral limit theorem
In probability theory, the central limit theorem states conditions under which the mean of a sufficiently large number of independent random variables, each with finite mean and variance, will be approximately normally distributed. The central limit theorem has a number of variants. In its common...
in statistics). Gold code
Gold code
A Gold code, also known as Gold sequence, is a type of binary sequence, used in telecommunication and satellite navigation . Gold codes are named after Robert Gold. Gold codes have bounded small cross-correlations within a set, which is useful when multiple devices are broadcasting in the same range...
s are an example of a PN suitable for this purpose, as there is low correlation between the codes. If all of the users are received with the same power level, then the variance (e.g., the noise power) of the MAI increases in direct proportion to the number of users. In other words, unlike synchronous CDMA, the signals of other users will appear as noise to the signal of interest and interfere slightly with the desired signal in proportion to number of users.
All forms of CDMA use spread spectrum
Spread spectrum
Spread-spectrum techniques are methods by which a signal generated in a particular bandwidth is deliberately spread in the frequency domain, resulting in a signal with a wider bandwidth...
process gain
Process gain
In a spread spectrum system, the process gain is the ratio of the spread bandwidth to the unspread bandwidth. It is usually expressed in decibels ....
to allow receivers to partially discriminate against unwanted signals. Signals encoded with the specified PN sequence (code) are received, while signals with different codes (or the same code but a different timing offset) appear as wideband noise reduced by the process gain.
Since each user generates MAI, controlling the signal strength is an important issue with CDMA transmitters. A CDM (synchronous CDMA), TDMA, or FDMA receiver can in theory completely reject arbitrarily strong signals using different codes, time slots or frequency channels due to the orthogonality of these systems. This is not true for Asynchronous CDMA; rejection of unwanted signals is only partial. If any or all of the unwanted signals are much stronger than the desired signal, they will overwhelm it. This leads to a general requirement in any asynchronous CDMA system to approximately match the various signal power levels as seen at the receiver. In CDMA cellular, the base station uses a fast closed-loop power control scheme to tightly control each mobile's transmit power.
Efficient Practical utilization of Fixed Frequency Spectrum
In theory, CDMA, TDMA and FDMA have exactly the same spectral efficiency but practically, each has its own challenges – power control in the case of CDMA, timing in the case of TDMA, and frequency generation/filtering in the case of FDMA.TDMA systems must carefully synchronize the transmission times of all the users to ensure that they are received in the correct timeslot and do not cause interference. Since this cannot be perfectly controlled in a mobile environment, each timeslot must have a guard-time, which reduces the probability that users will interfere, but decreases the spectral efficiency. Similarly, FDMA systems must use a guard-band between adjacent channels, due to the unpredictable doppler shift of the signal spectrum because of user mobility. The guard-bands will reduce the probability that adjacent channels will interfere, but decrease the utilization of the spectrum.
Flexible Allocation of Resources
Asynchronous CDMA offers a key advantage in the flexible allocation of resources i.e. allocation of a PN codes to active users. In the case of CDM (synchronous CDMA), TDMA, and FDMA the number of simultaneous orthogonal codes, time slots and frequency slots respectively is fixed hence the capacity in terms of number of simultaneous users is limited. There are a fixed number of orthogonal codes, timeslots or frequency bands that can be allocated for CDM, TDMA, and FDMA systems, which remain underutilized due to the bursty nature of telephony and packetized data transmissions. There is no strict limit to the number of users that can be supported in an asynchronous CDMA system, only a practical limit governed by the desired bit error probability, since the SIR (Signal to Interference Ratio) varies inversely with the number of users. In a bursty traffic environment like mobile telephony, the advantage afforded by asynchronous CDMA is that the performance (bit error rate) is allowed to fluctuate randomly, with an average value determined by the number of users times the percentage of utilization. Suppose there are 2N users that only talk half of the time, then 2N users can be accommodated with the same average bit error probability as N users that talk all of the time. The key difference here is that the bit error probability for N users talking all of the time is constant, whereas it is a random quantity (with the same mean) for 2N users talking half of the time.In other words, asynchronous CDMA is ideally suited to a mobile network where large numbers of transmitters each generate a relatively small amount of traffic at irregular intervals. CDM (synchronous CDMA), TDMA, and FDMA systems cannot recover the underutilized resources inherent to bursty traffic due to the fixed number of orthogonal codes, time slots or frequency channels that can be assigned to individual transmitters. For instance, if there are N time slots in a TDMA system and 2N users that talk half of the time, then half of the time there will be more than N users needing to use more than N timeslots. Furthermore, it would require significant overhead to continually allocate and deallocate the orthogonal code, time-slot or frequency channel resources. By comparison, asynchronous CDMA transmitters simply send when they have something to say, and go off the air when they don't, keeping the same PN signature sequence as long as they are connected to the system.
Spread-spectrum characteristics of CDMA
Most modulation schemes try to minimize the bandwidth of this signal since bandwidth is a limited resource. However, spread spectrum techniques use a transmission bandwidth that is several orders of magnitude greater than the minimum required signal bandwidth. One of the initial reasons for doing this was military applications including guidance and communication systems. These systems were designed using spread spectrum because of its security and resistance to jamming. Asynchronous CDMA has some level of privacy built in because the signal is spread using a pseudo-random code; this code makes the spread spectrum signals appear random or have noise-like properties. A receiver cannot demodulate this transmission without knowledge of the pseudo-random sequence used to encode the data. CDMA is also resistant to jamming. A jamming signal only has a finite amount of power available to jam the signal. The jammer can either spread its energy over the entire bandwidth of the signal or jam only part of the entire signal.CDMA can also effectively reject narrow band interference. Since narrow band interference affects only a small portion of the spread spectrum signal, it can easily be removed through notch filtering without much loss of information. Convolution encoding and interleaving
Interleaving
In computer science and telecommunication, interleaving is a way to arrange data in a non-contiguous way to increase performance.It is typically used:* In error-correction coding, particularly within data transmission, disk storage, and computer memory....
can be used to assist in recovering this lost data. CDMA signals are also resistant to multipath fading. Since the spread spectrum signal occupies a large bandwidth only a small portion of this will undergo fading due to multipath at any given time. Like the narrow band interference this will result in only a small loss of data and can be overcome.
Another reason CDMA is resistant to multipath interference is because the delayed versions of the transmitted pseudo-random codes will have poor correlation with the original pseudo-random code, and will thus appear as another user, which is ignored at the receiver. In other words, as long as the multipath channel induces at least one chip of delay, the multipath signals will arrive at the receiver such that they are shifted in time by at least one chip from the intended signal. The correlation properties of the pseudo-random codes are such that this slight delay causes the multipath to appear uncorrelated with the intended signal, and it is thus ignored.
Some CDMA devices use a rake receiver
Rake receiver
A rake receiver is a radio receiver designed to counter the effects of multipath fading. It does this by using several "sub-receivers" called fingers, that is, several correlators each assigned to a different multipath component...
, which exploits multipath delay components to improve the performance of the system.
A rake receiver combines the information from several correlators, each one tuned to a different path delay, producing a stronger version of the signal than a simple receiver with a single correlation tuned to the path delay of the strongest signal.
Frequency reuse is the ability to reuse the same radio channel frequency at other cell sites within a cellular system. In the FDMA and TDMA systems frequency planning is an important consideration. The frequencies used in different cells must be planned carefully to ensure signals from different cells do not interfere with each other. In a CDMA system, the same frequency can be used in every cell, because channelization is done using the pseudo-random codes. Reusing the same frequency in every cell eliminates the need for frequency planning in a CDMA system; however, planning of the different pseudo-random sequences must be done to ensure that the received signal from one cell does not correlate with the signal from a nearby cell.
Since adjacent cells use the same frequencies, CDMA systems have the ability to perform soft hand offs. Soft hand offs allow the mobile telephone to communicate simultaneously with two or more cells. The best signal quality is selected until the hand off is complete. This is different from hard hand offs utilized in other cellular systems. In a hard hand off situation, as the mobile telephone approaches a hand off, signal strength may vary abruptly. In contrast, CDMA systems use the soft hand off, which is undetectable and provides a more reliable and higher quality signal.
Collaborative CDMA
In a recent study, a novel collaborative multi-user transmission and detection scheme called Collaborative CDMA has been investigated for the uplink that exploits the differences between users’ fading channel signatures to increase the user capacity well beyond the spreading length in multiple access interference (MAI) limited environment. The authors show that it is possible to achieve this increase at a low complexity and high bit error rate performance in flat fading channels, which is a major research challenge for overloaded CDMA systems. In this approach, instead of using one sequence per user as in conventional CDMA, the authors group a small number of users to share the same spreading sequence and enable group spreading and despreading operations. The new collaborative multi-user receiver consists of two stages: group multi-user detection (MUD) stage to suppress the MAI between the groups and a low complexity maximum-likelihood detection stage to recover jointly the co-spread users’ data using minimum Euclidean distance measure and users’ channel gain coefficients. In CDM signal security is high.See also
- Near-far problemNear-far problemThe near-far problem or hearability problem is a situation that is common in wireless communication systems, in particular, CDMA. In some signal jamming techniques, the near-far problem is exploited to disrupt communications.-Technical explanation:...
- cdmaOneIS-95Interim Standard 95 is the first CDMA-based digital cellular standard by Qualcomm. The brand name for IS-95 is cdmaOne. IS-95 is also known as TIA-EIA-95....
- CDMA2000CDMA2000CDMA2000 is a family of 3G mobile technology standards, which use CDMA channel access, to send voice, data, and signaling data between mobile phones and cell sites. The set of standards includes: CDMA2000 1X, CDMA2000 EV-DO Rev. 0, CDMA2000 EV-DO Rev. A, and CDMA2000 EV-DO Rev. B...
- W-CDMAW-CDMAW-CDMA , UMTS-FDD, UTRA-FDD, or IMT-2000 CDMA Direct Spread is an air interface standard found in 3G mobile telecommunications networks. It is the basis of Japan's NTT DoCoMo's FOMA service and the most-commonly used member of the UMTS family and sometimes used as a synonym for UMTS...
- Orthogonal variable spreading factor (OVSF), an implementation of CDMA
- Pseudo-random noise
- Spread spectrumSpread spectrumSpread-spectrum techniques are methods by which a signal generated in a particular bandwidth is deliberately spread in the frequency domain, resulting in a signal with a wider bandwidth...
- CDMA Spectral EfficiencyCDMA spectral efficiencyCDMA spectral efficiency refers to the system spectral efficiency in bit/s/Hz/site or Erlang/MHz/site that can be achieved in a certain CDMA based wireless communication system...
- Comparison of mobile phone standardsComparison of mobile phone standards-Issues:Global System for Mobile Communications and IS-95 were the two most prevalent 2G mobile communication technologies in 2007...