Aperiodic Hamming correlations 159
As in the periodic case, we use the term NHZ instead of LHZ when H
a
=H
c
=0. In this
case, the parameter L
AHZ
is written as N
AHZ
.AnFHSsetS with L
AHZ
≥ 0orN
AHZ
≥ 0
is called an LHZ FHS set or NHZ FHS set with respect to AHC, respectively.
Frequency-hopping code-division multiple-access (FH-CDMA) is widely used in modern
communication systems such as Bluetooth, ultra-wideband (UWB), military and commer-
cial radar systems [8,9]. In such systems, each carrier frequency is selected from a set of
frequencies, which are spaced approximately the width of the data modulation bandwidth
apart. The frequencies used are chosen pseudo-randomly by FHS. As is often the case, in
a MA environment, mutual interference occurs when two or more transmitters transmit on
the same frequency at the same time. It is desirable to keep the mutual interference between
transmitters at a level as low as possible. The degree of the mutual interference is clearly
related to the Hamming correlation properties of the FHS [11]. Moreover, it is also preferred
to have more FHSs accommodating more distinct users. However, the parameters of the FHSs
are bounded by certain theoretical limits. In order to evaluate the performance of given FHSs,
it is important to understand the trade-offs between these parameters.
The AHC property of spreading sequences is more important for system performance than
the PHC property since AHC matters in real applications [7,10], while PHC is considered in
most papers [1–3,5–7,12,16,21]. In 2004, Peng and Fan [14] obtained the first nontrivial
bound on the AHCs of an FHS set that takes into account its size.
Conventional FHS design try to minimize the Hamming correlations no matter how large
or small a shift might be. However, we may be able to achieve lower correlations for given
basic parameters such as frequency slot set size, sequence length, sequence set size if we
only have to care about a certain limited range of shifts, rather than every possible magnitude
[15]. In a quasi-synchronous communication system, it makes more sense to use optimal
sequences tailored to such limited range of shifts scenarios [8]. The FHS design with NHZ or
LHZ aims at making Hamming correlation values equal to zero or a very low value within a
correlation zone [17]. The significance of an NHZ/LHZ sequence set is that the number of hits
between difference sequences will always be zero or very small as long as the relative delay
does not exceed certain limit (zone), thus eliminating or reducing the mutual interference.
There exist several constructions of optimal NHZ FHSs [4,18–20] with respect to the Ye
and Fan bound [18]. In 2006, Peng et al. [15] derived some bounds on the PHCs of an FHS
set with LHZ. In 2010, Niu et al. [13] derived some bounds on the AHCs of an FHS set with
LHZ. However, the bounds on the AHCs of an FHS set with LHZ derived by Niu et al. [13]
are not tight. In this paper, we will pay particular attention to the bounds on the AHCs of an
FHS set with LHZ.
The outline of this paper is as follows. In Sect. 2, some preliminaries are introduced. In Sect.
3, basic correlation properties of FHSs with LHZ are established. In Sect. 4, lower bounds
on the maximum aperiodic Hamming autocorrelation and crosscorrelation of FHSs with
LHZ are derived and compared with the previous results. Finally, we give some concluding
remarks in Sect. 5.
2 Preliminaries
Let S be a set of FHSs of family size M and length L over a given frequency slot set F of size
q.PengandFan[14] obtained the following bounds on the maximum aperiodic Hamming
autocorrelation and crosscorrelation of an FHS set:
2(L − 1)(M + q
)H
am
+ (M − 1)(2L − 1)(M + q)H
cm
≥ (3LM − Lq − M − q)L.
(1)
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