Patent ID: 7421011

Claim:
A method for performing an acquisition to a code-modulated spread spectrum signal, the method comprising: receiving the code-modulated spread spectrum signal; sampling the received code-modulated spread spectrum signal to form samples; forming at least one reference code corresponding to a code used in the modulation; forming a non-coherent search matrix on the basis of said samples, said non-coherent search matrix comprising elements in at least a first dimension, the first dimension of said non-coherent search matrix representing the same frequency deviation but different code phases of the received signal, wherein each element is addressable in the first dimension by a first index; and determining a code phase of the code used in the modulation on the basis of values of elements of said non-coherent search matrix; said determining comprising: defining at least one statistical parameter for at least one line of elements of said non-coherent search matrix in the first dimension on the basis of values of each element of said at least one line of elements; defining a reference value on the basis of a value of an element of said line of elements and said at least one statistical parameter; and examining said reference value to determine whether said element of said line of elements corresponds to the code phase of the received signal, wherein the code phase of the received signal is determined on the basis of the first index of such element corresponding to the frequency deviation and the code phase of the received signal.