Patent ID: 8300675

Claim:
A method for acquiring a complex spreading code from a direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS) signal, the DSSS signal comprising a data signal spectrally spread with the complex spreading code, the method comprising: a) receiving a sampled DSSS signal obtained by sampling the DSSS signal at a sampling rate at least equal to a chip rate of the complex spreading code, the sampled DSSS signal comprising in-phase signal samples and quadrature signal samples; b) forming a bipolar differential product (DP) signal from the in-phase and quadrature signal samples using a differential product operation, the bipolar DP signal comprising DP values having a sign that is generally independent on the data signal; c) providing a first sequence of n DP values to a decoder for obtaining a first codeword of a linear block code (n, k), wherein the linear block code (n, k) is defined by a spreading code generator (SCG) for generating the complex spreading code and by the differential product operation, wherein k is a length of the SCG, and n is a positive integer greater than k; and, d) determining, based on the first codeword, a first SCG state estimate for generating the complex spreading code.