Practical RAKE receiver architecture for downlink communications in a DS-CDMA mobile system

The authors deal with a practical architecture for a RAKE receiver suitable for the downlink communication in a direct-sequence code division multiple access (DS-CDMA) mobile system. The proposed RAKE receiver makes use of a pilot signal broadcast by the base station to obtain channel parameter estimation and synchronisation. Computer simulations have been carried out in deriving the performance in terms of bit-error probability under typical multipath fading propagation conditions of GSM applications. Comparisons with an ideal RAKE receiver and with a multipath rejection receiver proposed in the literature, for the same type of downlink channel, are shown to highlight the good behaviour of the proposed receiver.