IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 7, NO.
5, MAY 2008
Sequence Hopping Cell Search Scheme for OFDM Cellular Systems
Ilgyu Kim, Member, IEEE, Youngnam Han, Senior Member, IEEE, YoungHoon Kim, Member, IEEE,
and Seung Chan Bang, Member, IEEE
Abstract— OFDM has been a widely accepted technology in
high rate and multimedia data service systems, such as 3G Long
Term Evolution (3G LTE) system in the 3rd Generation Partner-
ship Project (3GPP). In this paper, we propose a new cell search
scheme based on the frequency domain sequence hopping of
synchronization channel symbols. The assigned hopping pattern
provides frame boundary information as well as cell identification
(cell ID) to a mobile station (MS). The proposed synchronization
channel structure allows MS to acquire OFDM symbol/frame
timing, cell ID and frequency offset estimates in the initial cell
search stage. The cell search in MS is composed of 2 steps; OFDM
symbol synchronization step, frequency offset correction and cell
ID/frame boundary detection step. We evaluate the performance
of proposed scheme under various channel environments. The
impacts of multipath fading, vehicular speed and frequency
offset on the performance are investigated. We also compare
the performance of proposed scheme with 3G LTE cell search
scheme.
Index Terms— OFDM, cell search, synchronization, sequence
hopping, 3G long term evolution.
I. I NTRODUCTION
D UE to its inherent robustness to the multipath fading,
no intra-cell interference and granular resource alloca-
tion capability, orthogonal frequency division multiplexing
(OFDM) techniques have been widely adopted for many high
data rate applications, such as DAB/DVB (digital audio and
video broadcasting) system, high-rate WLAN (wireless local
area networks) such as IEEE802.11a, HIPERLAN II and
terrestrial DMB(digital multimedia broadcasting) system [1]-
[4]. Also, for a smooth migration toward 4G, 3G LTE (Long
Term Evolution) plan was announced recently to apply OFDM
techniques for downlink transmission in the 3G LTE cellular
network [5]. The design of a synchronization channel (SCH)
for supporting an efficient cell search in mobile station (MS) is
one of the most important topics in standardization. Currently,
the working assumption for 3G LTE cell search is to use
two SCHs; a primary synchronization channel (P-SCH) and
a secondary synchronization channel (S-SCH) [6]. Basically,
the cell search scheme in 3G LTE is based on the hierarchical
cell search scheme of WCDMA system with two types of
SCH, which is known to be beneficial in asynchronous cellular
systems [7]. The P-SCH and the S-SCH are code multiplexed
Manuscript received December 18, 2006; revised January 29, 2007, De-
cember 7, 2007, and February 5, 2008; accepted February 17, 2008. The
associate editor coordinating the review of this paper and approving it for
publication was C. Xiao.
I. Kim, Y. Kim, and S. C. Bang are with the Wireless Transmission
Technology Research Group, Electronics and Telecommunications Research
Institute (ETRI), Korea (email: igkim, yhkim, scbang@etri.re.kr).
I. Kim and Y. Han are with the School of Engineering, Information and
Communications University (ICU), Korea email: igkim, ynhan@icu.ac.kr.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TWC.2008.060992.
1536-1276/08$25.00 
c 2008 IEEE
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1483
in WCDMA, while in LTE, they are time multiplexed in
adjacent symbol positions. In LTE, the P-SCH and the S-
SCH are transmitted twice in every 10 msec radio frame.
Three different P-SCH signals are used to distinguish three
sector cells within a base station (BS) and 170 different S-
SCH signals are used to differentiate 170 BSs so that 510 cell
identities (cell IDs) can be specified by the combination of
the P-SCH signals and the S-SCH signals. The P-SCH and
the S-SCH occupy centered 1.25 MHz frequency band among
the total system bandwidth. The same P-SCH sequence is
transmitted in two P-SCH symbol positions in every 10 msec
frame but different S-SCH sequences are transmitted at the two
S-SCH symbol positions so the number of P-SCH sequences
and that of S-SCH sequences are 3 and 340 (170*2) in the
system, respectively [6].
The cell search procedure consists of two steps: In the first
step, an MS finds P-SCH sequence index and P-SCH symbol
timing (5 msec timing) using three time domain matched filters
which correspond to the P-SCH sequences. In the second step,
the MS detects S-SCH sequence index and 10 msec frame tim-
ing based on frequency domain correlation using 340 S-SCH
sequences. One drawback of the current 3G LTE cell search
scheme is the computational burden in the first step since
matched filter operation requires a large number of complex
multiplications. Another drawback is that both synchronization
steps experience severe performance degradation under a large
frequency offset environment.
In this paper, as an alterative method, we propose an
efficient cell search scheme based on a sequence hopping
technique. By using the same SCH channel both at the
first step and at the second step, the proposed scheme can
overcome the drawbacks of 3G LTE cell search scheme. The
performance of proposed scheme is compared with that of 3G
LTE scheme under the 3G LTE simulation environment [9]
for initial cell search.
This paper is organized as follows. The downlink frame
format including the proposed SCH structure is described in
section II and section III introduces the proposed cell search
algorithm at an MS. In section IV, based on the numerology
provided in the physical layer specification [6] for 3G LTE, the
performance of each cell search step of proposed scheme is
investigated and compared with a 3G LTE cell search scheme
in various channel environments. And then average cell search
time performance is analyzed and evaluated in section V.
Finally the conclusions are drawn in section VI.
II. T RANSMITTER M ODEL
Fig. 1 shows the frame structure which includes the pro-
posed SCH structure. The frame structure except the SCH
1484
10 ms (one frame duration)
slot 0 slot 5
System Bandwidth
(1.25 ~ 20 MHz)
1.25 MHz
Sync block
(2.5 msec)
 
Fig. 1. Proposed SCH structure.
is the same with the one in the 3G LTE specification [6].
The length of a radio frame is 10 msec and one radio frame
is composed of 20 time slots. For convenience, we define a
“sync block”, which is composed of 5 time slots resulting in a
radio frame with 4 sync blocks. Each sync block has one SCH
symbol as shown in Fig. 1, thus the resource occupation of
the proposed SCH remains the same as the one of the current
3G LTE SCH structure. An SCH sequence is allocated to each
SCH symbol in the frequency domain and the SCH sequence
is used as Fourier coefficients at the occupied sub-carrier
frequencies. The SCH sequence in a symbol is composed
of two types of binary sequences, a pseudorandom (PN)
scrambling sequence ui = (ui (0) , ui (1) , ..., ui (N − 1)) and
an orthogonal sequence cj = (cj (0) , cj (1) , ..., cj (N − 1))
where i and j are the sequence indices of the scrambling
sequence and the orthogonal sequence, respectively. Hadamard
sequences of length 32 are used as binary orthogonal code
sequences and modified Gold sequences of length 32 are used
for scrambling sequences. The modified Gold sequences are
generated by just adding “0” at the end of Gold sequences
of length 31. The same scrambling sequence is used for all
SCH symbol positions in a frame but the binary orthogonal
sequences within one frame interval vary from block to block.
This technique is called “sequence hopping”. A hopping
sequence hg = (hg (0) , hg (1) , hg (2) , hg (3)) is used for
hopping the binary orthogonal code, where g is the hopping
sequence ID and each element of a hopping sequence denotes
one of the N (= 32) binary orthogonal code sequences.
The code alphabet size (dimension of hg (x)) of a hopping
sequence is the same as the number of orthogonal sequences
(i.e., 32). A cell ID used in the system can be identified by
a combination of a hopping sequence ID and a scrambling
sequence ID. In this paper, we assume 3 scrambling sequences
and 170 hopping sequences in order to identify 510 cell IDs.
The hopping sequence gives an MS not only the hopping
sequence ID (one among 170) but also the cyclic shift index
(one among 4), thus, the 170 original hopping sequences and
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 7, NO. 5, MAY 2008
slot 10 slot 15
ui (0)c j (0)
... SCH
ui (1)c j (1)
Null subcarrier
 Others
ui (30)c j (30)
ui (31)c j (31)
its cyclic shifted sequences (total 680 sequences) have to be
unique. Using this property, MS gets the cell ID and the
10 msec frame boundary simultaneously. About 200 hopping
sequences with codeword length of 4 and code alphabet size of
32 can be generated while maintaining the minimum hamming
distance for any pair of the sequences or their cyclic shifted
version by 3. Among them, only 170 hopping sequences are
used.
On the other hand, in order to support the scalable band-
width allocation from 1.25 MHz to 20 MHz, the SCH occupies
the central part (1.25 MHz) of the entire bandwidth regardless
of the total transmission bandwidth of the system [6]. The
SCH symbol uses only half of the allocated sub-carriers, that
is, 32 out of 64 used sub-carriers as shown in Fig. 1.
III. S EARCH A LGORITHM
A. Search Algorithm of LTE Scheme
In this subsection, we briefly mention the search algorithm
of 3G LTE scheme [8]. In the current working assumption
for the SCH in 3G LTE, both the P-SCH and the S-SCH
occupy all subcarriers in the centered band and the number
of subcarriers for SCH is 64 within 1.25 MHz [10][11].
Zadoff-Chu (ZC) sequences are used for 3 P-SCH sequences
and concatenated two binary sequences of length 32 are
mapped to 64 subcarriers of S-SCH [11]. When we use two
binary sequences of length 32 in an S-SCH symbol, we can
generate 1024 (32x32) sequences among which 340 sequences
are used for S-SCH sequences. At the first step, matched
filter operations corresponding to three P-SCH sequences are
performed and resulting P-SCH symbol timing and P-SCH
sequence index is used at the second step. The cell group ID
(one among 170) and 10 msec frame boundary are detected in
the second step based on the frequency domain correlations
of the candidate S-SCH sequences. The second step detection
scheme under current discussion in 3G LTE is based on the
coherent frequency domain correlation of S-SCH sequences
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 7, NO. 5, MAY 2008 1485

: complex : real

Frequency domain correlator

rp rp' Sliding
vp v 'p Cell ID/
Freq. offset Decima Descram window Frame
FFT FHT I2+Q2 (δ )
compensator tor bler boundary
64+ δ 64 32 3x32 3x32 3x32 accumulator 3x32
detector

Fig. 2. Second step detector (Ns = 64).

using the channel estimate of P-SCH symbol which is located block boundary detection. The differential correlator output
just after the S-SCH symbol [11][12][13]. Before the coherent at the nth sample point can be defined as
detection, a frequency offset should be compensated using P-
SCH signal [10]. Since the P-SCH signal has no time domain Ns


2−1  
Ns
repetition property, the frequency offset estimation scheme z (n) = r∗ (n + i) r n + i + (4)
is based on the correlation of the received signal and the i=0
2
time domain waveform of frequency domain P-SCH sequence
[10][14] as where r(x) is the time domain sample of received signal at
sample point x and NS is the number of samples in one
⎧  Ns ∗ OFDM symbol. Even if the applied Fourier mapping sequence
⎨P
−1 2−1   of SCH is different from block to block, the differential
Δf = Rs
arg rp (n) s∗ (n)
πNs ⎩ p=0 n=0 correlator output at each SCH symbol position has the same
⎧ ⎫⎫ characteristics. This is the reason why the first step and the
⎨ N
s −1  ⎬⎬ second step can use only one synchronization channel. Above
· rp (n) s∗ (n)
⎩n= Ns ⎭⎭ equation can be replaced by
2
(1)
where rp (n) is the time domain sample of received signal at z (n) = z (n − 1) 
sample point n in the P-SCH symbol position and s (n) is + r∗ n + N2s − 1 r (n + Ns − 1) (5)
the time domain waveform of the P-SCH sequence. Ns is the − r∗ (n − 1) r n + N2s − 1 .
number of samples within an SCH symbol excluding cyclic
prefix. The decision metric of the second step can be defined From (5), we can see that the number of operations for
as differential correlation is 2 complex multiplications and 2
additions per sample. On the other hand, matched filtering


P s −1
−1 N

 ∗ ∗ operation in the first step of 3G LTE has Ns complex multipli-
v (i) = rp (k) cip (k) αp (k) , i = 0, 1, ..., 339 (2)
cations and additions per sample. Moreover, since the number
p=0 k=0
of P-SCH sequences is 3, 3Ns complex multiplications and

where rp (k) is the k th subcarrier component of FFT outputs in additions are required. Even if the amount of the first step
pth S-SCH symbol position and cip (k) is the k th component of operation in the 3G LTE scheme can be reduced to 2/3 by
the ith S-SCH sequence. αp (k) is the channel estimation value using the symmetrical properties of ZC sequences [10], the
for the k th subcarrier component which is extracted from the complexity of the first step for the current method discussed
adjacent P-SCH symbol position. Since the second step of 3G in 3G LTE is 64 (Ns =64) times higher than the proposed
LTE utilizes coherent detection scheme, the real part is used scheme.
for the hypothesis testing so resulting normalized maximum The performance of the differential correlator defined by (4)
decision metric is defined by or (5) can be degraded when there is a large initial frequency
offset in an MS. By using the square-law technique, we can
Re (v (i))max subdue the performance degradation due to the frequency
v (i)nor = . (3) offset in the first step. In addition, to increase the detection
max 
339
1
339 |v (i)| probability in the first step, the correlator outputs can be
i=0
i=imax accumulated block by block. On the other hand, equal gain
combining is employed when the number of receiver antennas
in an MS is two.
B. Search Algorithm of Proposed Scheme
The second step detector is composed of a frequency offset
The cell search algorithm of the proposed scheme is also compensation block, a frequency domain correlator, a sliding
composed of two steps as in [8], but it differs in that the window accumulator and a cell ID/frame boundary detector
same SCH signal is utilized in both the first step and the as in Fig. 2. The second step detector basically employs non-
second step. Since the SCH symbol occupies only even coherent detection scheme. At first, using P × Ns received
numbered subcarriers, its time domain signal waveform has samples, the second step detector estimates the frequency
repetition property. Using this property, the first step of the offset as in Eq. (6) and compensates the P ×(Ns + δ) samples
proposed scheme utilizes a differential correlator for sync using the estimated frequency offset as in Eq. (7).
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1486
⎧ ⎫
2 −1   ⎬
Ns
Rs ⎨P
−1
N
Δf = arg rp∗ (i) rp i +
s
(6)
πNs ⎩ 2 ⎭ at the pth SCH symbol position and i = imod(LNG ) and
p=0 i=0
 
 Δf
rp (i) = rp (i) exp −j2π i .
Rs
In (6) and (7), P is the number of SCH symbols used in
the second step, Rs is the sampling rate and arg (x) denotes
the phase of complex value x. rp (i) is the ith sample in the
pth symbol.
The frequency domain correlator receives Ns + δ samples
from frequency offset compensator at each SCH symbol
position. The reason to use Ns + δ samples instead of Ns
samples is to employ sliding accumulation during δ samples
of window, thus the number of operations of the frequency
domain correlator per one sync block is δ. If the second step
detector does not employ the sliding accumulation and use
only Ns samples then performance degradation is inevitable
when there exists the timing deviation of few samples in the
first step. It is desirable to use a larger δ than the channel
delay spread. The frequency domain correlator is composed of
a fast Fourier transformer (FFT), a decimator, a descrambler, a
fast Hadamard transformer (FHT) and a square-law combiner.
The decimator selects 32 subcarriers among FFT outputs and
descrambler descrambles 32 decimator outputs using three
scrambling sequences. FHTs of length 32 are performed for
three branches of descrambler outputs. Finally, 3x32 FHT
outputs are square-law combined. The sliding accumulator
accumulates the frequency domain correlator output during
δ samples of window.
The cell ID/frame boundary detector keeps the sliding
window accumulator outputs during P SCH symbol positions.
Since the maximum number of hits between any two (cyclic
shifted) hopping sequences is 1, P should be larger than 1
in order to find the cell ID and frame boundary uniquely. We
assume that P is the same as the number of sync blocks in
a frame (i.e., 4) throughout this paper. Since the first step
of the proposed scheme gives only 2.5 msec sync block
timing information, the 10 msec radio frame boundary in
addition to the cell ID should be detected in the second step.
Thus there are LNcell hypotheses in the second step of the
proposed scheme. Where L is the number of sync blocks in
a frame and Ncell is the number of cell IDs. As mentioned
earlier, the cell ID can be identified by a combination of a
scrambling sequence index (one among three possible values)
and a hopping sequence index (one among 170 possible
sequences). In addition, the cyclic shift index (one among L
possible values) of the hopping sequence denotes 10 msec
frame boundary information.
Using P × 3 × 32 accumulator outputs and 170 hopping
sequences, the cell ID/frame boundary detector calculates the
decision variable defined by
 As a worst case scenario, full traffic data loading over 64
P
−1 
  
w (i) = vp 32 i/ (LNG ) + hi /L i mod L + p
p=0
i = 0, ..., LNcell − 1
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 7, NO. 5, MAY 2008
where NG is the number of hopping sequences and hx (y) is

the y th code alphabet of the xth hopping code sequence. vp (k)
is the k th sliding accumulator output among 3x32 outputs
    
i mod L + p = i mod L + p . x means the largest
mod L
(7) integer smaller than x. By choosing the maximum value,
the second step detector can find the cell ID and 10 msec
frame boundary simultaneously. For example, when L = 4,
NG = 170 and Ncell = 510, the decision variables for
i ∈ {0, ..., 679} , i ∈ {680, ..., 1359} and i ∈ {1360, ..., 2309}
corresponds to scrambling sequence index 0, 1, and 2, respec-
tively. 680 decision variables at each set can be divided into 4
parts and each part denotes the cyclic shifted versions of 170
hopping sequences. Thus, once one decision variable among
2040 candidates is chosen, corresponding scrambling sequence
index, cyclic shift index and hopping sequence index can be
obtained simultaneously.
The important design consideration which should be taken
into account in the second step is the false alarm probability.
The second step detector accepts a candidate only when the
detected metric is greater than a threshold, that is,
w (i)nor max >θ (9)
where w(i)nor max is the normalized maximum decision met-
ric defined by
w (i)max
w (i)nor = LN
. (10)
cell −1
max
1
LNcell −1 w (i)
i=0
i=imax
The average cell search time is influenced by the threshold
since the detection and the false alarm probabilities of the
second step depend on the threshold. The average cell search
time according to the thresholds will be investigated in section
V.
The complexity of the second step of the proposed scheme
is higher than the one of 3G LTE scheme since the number
of operations of the frequency domain correlator is δ times
larger than the one of 3G LTE scheme. But when we consider
both the first and the second steps, the total complexity of
proposed scheme is lower than the current 3G LTE scheme
because the complexity of the first step is much higher than
the second step, where the first step operation is performed at
every sample position but the operation of the second step is
performed at few sample positions in a frame.
IV. S IMULATION S TUDIES
Simulation parameters are based on the numerology in the
3G LTE physical layer specification [6]. Maximum frequency
offset is 10 kHz and typical urban channel model with 6-path
fading channels is used [9]. The performance of the first step
of cell search can be influenced by traffic channel data loading.
The larger the loading, the smaller the detection probability.
used subcarriers are assumed. ZC sequence indices of three
,
P-SCH sequences are 31, 33, 39 [10] and two Hadamard
sequences of length 32 are used for concatenation of the S-
(8) SCH sequences [11][12][13] in 3G LTE scheme. Transmit
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 7, NO. 5, MAY 2008 1487

1 1
: LTE-full (0 Hz)
: LTE-full (10 KHz)
: LTE-partial (0 Hz)
: LTE-partial (10 KHz)
: Proposed (0 Hz)
: Proposed (10 KHz)

Second Step DER

First Step DER

0.1
0.1

: LTE-perfect (0 Hz)
: LTE-real (0 Hz)
: LTE-real (10 KHz)
: Proposed-perfect (0 Hz)
: Proposed-real (0 Hz)
: Proposed-real (10 KHz)
0.01
0.01 -16 -14 -12 -10 -8 -6 -4 -2 0 2 4
-8 -6 -4 -2 0 2 4 6
SNR per RX antenna
SNR per RX antenna
Fig. 4. Second step detection error rate (velocity is 120 km/hr).
Fig. 3. First step detection error rate (velocity is 120 km/hr).

where su (i) is time domain replica of an frequency do-

antenna diversity is not used but two-branch receiver antenna
main PSC sequence (u = 0, 1, 2). In AWGN channel (non-
diversity is assumed since it is baseline assumption in the
frequency offset), the partial correlation scheme has some
3G LTE performance evaluation [9]. Equal gain combining is
performance degradation compared to the full correlation
used for receiver antenna diversity. Center frequency is 2 GHz
scheme since the coherent correlation (accumulation) length of
and the number of cell IDs for both schemes is 510. For the
the partial correlation scheme is just half of the full coherent
coherent detection in the second step of 3G LTE scheme, DFT
scheme. But if there is a frequency offset, then the situation is
based channel estimation using P-SCH is assumed [12][13].
different. The performance of full correlation scheme becomes
Finally we assume sliding window (δ) for proposed scheme
poorer than the partial correlation scheme as the frequency
as 7 samples. This is slightly larger than the cyclic prefix of
offset gets larger. If the frequency offset is 10 kHz, then the
OFDM in the 3G LTE specification.
period of phase rotation of the received signal becomes 100
Fig. 3 shows the first step performance comparison over
μsec which is larger than the SCH symbol duration (66.7
frequency offsets. We assume that the averaging length for
μsec). In this case, if we use a full correlation, detected energy
both LTE and proposed schemes is 10 msec. If the estimated
may be very small since the energy is canceled within the full
P-SCH symbol timing locates within cyclic prefix duration of
coherent accumulation length. But by using partial correlation
real P-SCH symbol timing, then correct detection is declared.
and non-coherently combining two parts, we can minimize the
The number of hypotheses of the first step of proposed scheme
energy cancelation effect due to the frequency offset. In Fig.
is the number of samples in 2.5 msec (i.e., 2400) but the one
3, it is seen that the LTE scheme with full coherent correlation
of LTE scheme is six times larger than the proposed scheme
has the best performance when there is no frequency offset but
(i.e., 14400) because the period of P-SCH is 5 msec and
when the frequency offset is 10 kHz, it does not work. This
three P-SCH sequences are used in the system. This means
means that we cannot use full length coherent correlation in
that the required buffer size of the first step in 3G LTE
real cell search environment since the initial frequency offset
scheme is 6 times larger than the one of proposed scheme
of an MS can be 10 kHz (at 2 GHz ) [9]. As mentioned
when the accumulation technique is employed in the first
earlier, the first step of proposed scheme is not impacted
step. Both of full coherent correlation and partial coherent
by frequency offset since it employs differential correlator
correlation are considered for LTE scheme. Full coherent
followed by square law combiner. When we compare the
correlation scheme employs coherent correlation over entire P-
proposed scheme with LTE partial correlation scheme, it is
SCH symbol duration but partial coherent correlation scheme
seen that there exists a cross over point and that point is shifted
employs coherent correlation over half of the duration and
toward low SNR value when the frequency offset is large.
then non-coherently combines two parts. The full coherent
correlation scheme and the partial coherent correlation scheme Fig. 4 presents the second step performance comparison
are defined by Eq. (11) and Eq. (12) respectively. over frequency offsets. It is assumed that there is no error in
the first step and the detection threshold (θ) of the second step
N −1 2 is assumed as “zero” (The impact of θ on the cell search time
 s 
 ∗  performance will be discussed in following section). Both of
 r (n + i) su (i) (11)
  real frequency offset estimation and perfect frequency offset
i=0
estimation are considered. It is seen that the performance gap
 Ns 2  2 between real and perfect offset corrections is very small for
 2 −1  Ns −1 
    proposed scheme but it is very large for 3G LTE scheme.
 ∗  
r (n + i) su (i) +  r (n + i) su (i)
∗
(12)
 When perfect frequency offset estimation is assumed, the
 i=0  i= Ns  3G LTE scheme outperforms proposed scheme but when
2

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1488 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 7, NO. 5, MAY 2008

T = T1+T2 200

Average Search Time (msec)

180
... : Proposed
First Step Second Step First Step Second Step
160 : LTE
T1 T2 140

120

100
Search Sucess SNR = -6, -3, 0 (dB)
80
SNR = -6, -3, 0 (dB)
PDzT 60

40
PMzT
zTf False 20
Search
Alarm
State 0
State 0 1 2 3 4 5
T Normalized Threshold
PFz
Fig. 6. Average search time performance comparisons (frequency offset: -10
kHz ∼ 10 kHz).
Search Start
Fig. 5. Serial cell search process and corresponding state diagram.
PD z T
U (z) = . (13)
1 − PM z T − PF z T +Tf
real frequency offset estimation is assumed, the performance The average time to the cell search is obtained by differen-
degradation of 3G LTE scheme is very high even if there is no tiating and evaluating it at z = 1,
frequency offset (In initial cell search environment, MS does
not know the initial frequency offset so it has to run the offset
compensation block even if the real frequency offset is 0 Hz). E [Tacq ] (14)
The reason of this performance degradation of 3G LTE second dU (z)
step is due to the inaccurate frequency offset estimation. In = |z=1
dz
[14], it was shown that the frequency offset estimation scheme PD T (1 − PM − PF ) + PD (PM T + PF (T + Tf ))
based on Eq. (1) has very poor performance than the scheme = 2
(1 − PM − PF )
based on Eq. (6). In addition, when we assume the same T + PF Tf
observation interval for the second steps of both schemes, the =
PD
number of available SCH symbols (P-SCH symbols) for offset
estimation of 3G LTE is just half of the proposed scheme. where

PD = PD1 PD2|H1 , (15)

V. AVERAGE S EARCH T IME A NALYSIS
We provide search time analysis under serial cell search
scheme. It is assumed that the accumulation length of the first
step (T1 ) and the observation length of the second step (T2 )
are the same as 10 msec for both in the proposed and 3G LTE
schemes. Thus, one dwell duration (minimum cell search time,
T ) becomes 20 msec. The cell search process can be regarded
as Markovian and the state diagram can be used to determine
the average cell search time [7]. Fig. 5 shows the serial cell
search process and corresponding state diagram, where the
probability of detection (PD ), miss (PM ) and false alarm (PF )
are, respectively defined as follows;
PD : Probability that one iteration of the two-step search
detects the time and cell ID.
PF : False alarm probability of the one iteration of the two-
step search.
PM : Probability that one iteration of the two-step search
misses the time or cell ID.
Note PD + PF + PM = 1 and Tf is the false alarm penalty
time.
Using Mason’s gain formula, the transfer function of the
state diagram in Fig. 5 is obtained as
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PF = PD1 PF 2|H1 + (1 − PD1 ) PF 2|H0 (16)
and
PD1 : Detection probability in the first step,
PD2|H1 : Detection probability in the second step assuming
correct first step,
PF 2|H1 : False alarm probability in the second step assuming
correct first step,
PF 2|H0 : False alarm probability in the second step assuming
incorrect first step.
Since we already obtained PD1 in the previous section,
it is sufficient to get PD2|H1 , PF 2|H1 and PF 2|H0 in order
to evaluate the average search time. Since Markovian model
for determining the acquisition time performance is valid for
independent fading for each step, we assume high vehicle
speed (120 km/hr). The false alarm penalty time is assumed as
200 msec. Fig. 6 shows average cell search time performance
comparisons between 3G LTE scheme and proposed scheme.
It was assumed that the half length partial coherent correlation
scheme is used for the first step of 3G LTE scheme and the
initial frequency offset is distributed from -10 kHz to 10 KHz.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 7, NO. 5, MAY 2008
It is seen that the average search time varies according to
normalized thresholds for both schemes. But it can be noticed
that the thresholds which minimize the average search time
are different for both schemes. It is seen that the threshold is
about 1.8 for proposed scheme but 3.1 for 3G LTE scheme.
From the figure, we can observe that the achievable minimum
search times of proposed scheme are 63, 27 and 21 msec for
-6 , -3 and 0 dB, respectively but the ones of 3G LTE scheme
are 72, 35, 26 msec for same SNRs.
VI. C ONCLUSIONS
In this paper, we proposed two-step cell search scheme
based on the sequence hopping technology for OFDM based
cellular system. Downlink frame format including the pro-
posed SCH signal and the receiver structure were presented.
The initial cell search performance of the proposed scheme
is compared with that of the cell search scheme based on the
current 3G LTE working assumption. It was shown that the
proposed scheme outperforms the 3G LTE working assump-
tion in initial cell search environment. The results in this paper
will provide the useful information in designing the downlink
synchronization channel and the cell search algorithm for
OFDM based cellular system.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work was supported in part by the Ministry of Educa-
tion, Korea, through its Brain Korea 21 Project in 2006.
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1489
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