DS/CDMA diversity receiver with despreading filters using combiner wherein first and second despreading filters are delayed with respect to each other by a period of half the chip rate

Claim 1

A direct-sequence code division multiple access receiver comprising: a first diversity branch having a first antenna, a first receiver connected thereto for recovering a transmitted symbol which was spread at a chip rate with a spreading code of predetermined length, and a first despreading filter comprising a tapped delay line having a series of taps for successively delaying a recovered symbol to produce tap signals, a plurality of multipliers for weighting the tap signals with a first vector of tap weight coefficients, and an adder for summing the weighted tap signals to produce an output signal of the first despreading filter; a second diversity branch having a second antenna, a second receiver connected thereto for recovering a transmitted symbol which was spread at the chip rate with the spreading code, and a second despreading filter comprising a tapped delay line having a series of taps for successively delaying the recovered symbol to produce tap signals, a plurality of multipliers for weighing the tap signals with a second vector of tap weight coefficients, and an adder for summing the weighted tap signals to produce an output signal of the second despreading filter; the tap signals of the first and second despreading filters being delayed with respect to each other by a period equal to half the reciprocal of the chip rate and the number of the taps of the delay lines of the first and second despreading filters defining a length which equals an integral multiple of the length of the spreading code; a diversity combiner for combining the output signals of said first and second despreading filters to produce a combined signal; a decision circuit for making a threshold decision based on said combined signal to produce a decision output signal; means for detecting a decision error from said combined signal and said decision output signal; and control means for controlling said first and second vectors of tap weight coefficients with the tap signals of said first and second despreading filters and said decision error so that the decision error is reduced to a minimum.