Spreading sequences for zero-forcing DS-CDMA multiuser detectors

In the past, different multiuser detectors for asynchronous code-division multiple-access communications have been proposed, many of them may be characterized as zero-forcing detectors, e.g., the decorrelation detector. We show that linear interference cancellation schemes are asymptotically zero-forcing which means that they are equivalent to the decorrelating detector if the number of stages approaches infinity. These detectors have been found to be superior to the conventional matched filter detector. However, the design of spreading sequences optimized especially for these receivers has not been considered up to now. Usually, spreading sequences are designed to have a low peak correlation parameter. Pursley (1977) has shown that the average interference parameter (AIP) is an important design parameter since it is related to the average signal-to-interference ratio of the conventional receiver. In this paper, we consider the construction of spreading sequences for zero-forcing multiuser detectors that are optimal in the sense of performance and near-far resistance. It is shown that sequences with a low AIP are near-optimal. This, again, stresses the importance of the AIP for the design of spreading sequences for CDMA systems employing any kind of receiver. Numerical examples indicate that by using optimized sequences the average signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) can be improved by about 1-2 dB for lengths of interest in applications.