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Gold code generator using LFSRs

By Mathuranathan < https://www.gaussianwaves.com/author/mathuranathan/>

June 9, 2015 < https://www.gaussianwaves.com/2015/06/gold-code-generator/>

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Focus of this article is to discuss the details of Gold code generator using preferred pair m-
sequences, implemented using linear feedback shift registers (LFSR). Finally we plot and
investigate correlation properties of the generated Gold codes.

Introduction
In a multi-user environment (like spread spectrum, CDMA ) large number of codes with
good correlation properties, is a necessity. Gold codes are suited for this application, since
a large number of codes with controlled correlation can be generated by a simple time shift
of two preferred m-sequences.

Gold sequences belong to the category of product codes where two m-sequences <
https://www.gaussianwaves.com/2018/09/maximum-length-sequences-m-sequences/>
of same length are XOR’ed to produce a Gold sequence. The two m-sequence must
maintain the same phase relationship till all the additions are performed. A slight change of
phase even in one of the m-sequences, produces a different Gold sequence altogether. Gold
codes are non-maximal and therefore they have poor auto-correlation property when
compared to that of the underlying m-sequences.

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 This article is part of the book
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A typical implementation of Gold code generator is shown in Figure 1. Here, the two
linear feedback shift registers (LFSR), each of length , are configured to generate two
different m-sequences. As we cannot start the LFSRs with all zero values, there need to be
some values in the LFSRs. These initial values are controlled by ‘seed 1‘ and ‘seed 2‘. The
phase of the m-sequence loaded into an LFSR can be controlled by shifting the initial seed
(initial value of the shift registers in the LFSR) there by providing an option to generate a
new Gold sequence.

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Figure 1: Generation of Gold Code using LFSR

Note that there exists numerous choice of Gold sequences based on the m-sequence
configuration
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Gold sequences possess good correlation properties. . In order to have a Gold code sequence
with three valued peak cross-correlation magnitudes, that is both bounded and uniform,
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the m-sequences generated by the two LFSRs need to be of preferred type.
Algebraic details on generating two preferred m-sequence for Gold code generation is
detailed in Gold’s work [1]. It warrants the need for searching the preferred pairs, instead,
the configurations given in Table 1 can be used for generating Gold codes that provide
optimal correlation properties (three valued correlation as mentioned in Reference [2]).
Following points must be noted when choosing the length of LFSR ( ) when generating
the Gold code.

● Three valued cross-correlation values occur when is odd or when .

● The peak cross-correlation magnitude achieves the minimum possible value only when
is odd ( ). Therefore, this is the best choice here.
● When , the m-sequences listed in table are still of preferred type (three
valued cross-correlation), but the lower bound is weaker when compared to the lower
bound when is odd.

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Table 1: Preferred pairs of m-sequences

Hardware implementation
A sample hardware implementation for generating a length 127 Gold code – using the
preferred pairs ([7,3,2,1],[7,3]) is shown in Figure 2. Here each register in the LFSR is a
D-flip flop,all connected in cascaded fashion and operating at a given synchronous clock.
Changing the initial seed values into shift registers produces a different set of Gold codes.
Matlab code for implementing a Gold code generator is available in this book. <
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Figure 2: Length 127 – Gold sequence generator with odd n for the preferred pairs –
[7,3,2,1], [7,3]

Correlation properties
Figure 3 on this post < https://www.gaussianwaves.com/2018/09/maximum-length-
sequences-m-sequences/> shows the periodic cross-correlation of two m-sequences that
are not a preferred pair. Let’s take a preferred pair from the Table 1 for N = 31 having the
feedback connections – [2,3,4,5] and [2,5]. The correlation of two sequences can be
computed using the function given in section 12.2.1 of this book <
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Figure 3: Normalized cross-correlation of preferred pair m-sequences using the feedback

connections [2,3,4,5] and [2,5]
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Figure 4: Autocorrelation of Gold code sequence generated using the preferred pair feedback
connections [2,3,4,5] and [2,5]

The normalized cross-correlation of the chosen preferred pair and the auto-correlation of
the corresponding Gold code is shown in Figure 3 and Figure 4 respectively. The auto-
correlation and cross-correlation plots reveal that the Gold code sequence does not
possess the excellent auto-correlation property as that of individual m-sequences, but it
possess good cross-correlation properties in comparison with the individual m-sequences.

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References:
[1] Gold, R. (1967), Optimal binary sequences for spread spectrum multiplexing,
IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, 13 (4), pp. 619-621. <
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/1054048>

[2] Sarwate D.V, Pursley, M.B., “Crosscorrelation Properties of Pseudorandom and

Related Sequences”, Proceedings of the IEEE, Volume 68, Issue 5, pp 593 – 619, May
1980. < https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/1455966>

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Topics in this chapter

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 Spread spectrum techniques < https://www.gaussianwaves.com/buy-books/>
● Introduction < https://www.gaussianwaves.com/2010/09/spread-spectrum-
communications-intro/>
● Code sequences < https://www.gaussianwaves.com/2010/09/spread-spectrum-
communications-intro/>
□ Sequence correlations < https://www.gaussianwaves.com/2010/09/spread-spectrum-
communications-intro/>
□ Maximum-length sequences (m-sequences) <
https://www.gaussianwaves.com/2018/09/maximum-length-sequences-m-sequences/>
□ Gold codes < https://www.gaussianwaves.com/2015/06/gold-code-generator/>
● Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum
□ Simulation of DSSS system
□ Performance of Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum over AWGN channel
□ Performance of Direct Sequence Spread spectrum in the presence of Jammer
● Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum
□ Simulation model
□ Binary Frequency Shift Keying (BFSK)
□ Allocation of frequency channels
□ Frequency hopping generator
□ Fast and slow frequency hopping
□ Simulation code for BFSK-FHSS

By Mathuranathan
Mathuranathan Viswanathan < https://www.linkedin.com/in/mathuranathan/> ,
is an author @ gaussianwaves.com that has garnered worldwide readership. He is a
masters in communication engineering and has 12 years of technical expertise in
channel modeling and has worked in various technologies ranging from read channel,
OFDM, MIMO, 3GPP PHY layer, Data Science & Machine learning.

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