SAW device implementation of a weighted stepped chirp code signal for direct sequence spread spectrum communications systems

This paper introduces a new weighted stepped chirp code signal for direct sequence spread spectrum (DS/SS) communications systems. This code signal uses the truncated cosine series functions as the chip functions, and it is the result of discretizing a continuous wave (CW) chirp that results in enhanced performance versus a pseudonoise (PN) code and equivalent performance and easier implementation than a CW chirp. This code signal will be shown to have improved compression ratio (CR) and peak sidelobe level (PSL) versus a PN code with identical code length and chip length. It also will be shown to have a similar CR and PSL compared to a CW chirp with identical pulse length and frequency deviation. The code signal is implemented on surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices that will be used as the code generator at the transmitter and the correlator at the receiver. The design considerations for the SAW device implementation of the code signal are discussed, including the effects of intersymbol interference. Experimental data is presented and compared to the predicted results for 8 different SAW devices examining the effects of code length (9 or 13 chips), weighting (uniform, cosine-squared, and Hamming), and sampling on the performance of the code signal.