Acquisition of GIOVE-A signals using multi-bit processing

Acquisition of spreading sequences is a crucial task in a spread spectrum communication or ranging receiver. The paper presents a multi-bit acquisition method to acquire Galileo signals. Instead of using one-bit representation of the local codes, the multi-bit processing technique explores the inherent degree-of-freedom in the representation of the local codes so as to speed-up the acquisition process. The design of the local codes is delineated in the paper. Two different code designs are investigated to deal with the binary-offset carrier modulation of the Galileo signals. The application of the multi-bit codes in acquiring GIOVE-A signals is then discussed.