Experimental evaluation of 3-step cell search method in W-CDMA mobile radio

This paper evaluates the cell search time performance of our previously proposed 3-step cell search method in a 2-cell site environment by laboratory and field experiments for wideband direct sequence code division multiple access (W-CDMA) mobile radio using asynchronous cell site operation. In the ongoing standardization in third generation partnership project (3GPP), our original method was refined with respect to several points in order to reduce the complexity of cell search. The cell search methods used in the paper are based on the 3GPP standard including the refinements. The experimental results show that the method achieves the fast cell search time of several hundred milliseconds in actual multipath-fading channels: the cell search is accomplished in less than approximately 300 and 700 msec at 90% of the detection probability when 9.1% and 5.0% of the total transmit power of a cell site was assigned to the common pilot channel (CPICH), respectively, in a 2-cell site environment.