Spread spectrum communication system with automatic rate detection

A method of automatic data rate detection for a multi-channel spread-spectrum communication system, comprising:

• transmitting signals from each of the representative channels for a desired symbol repetition;
• transmitting signals from each of the representative channels for a group of active data channels;
• detecting the number of symbol repetition and the set of active data channels;
• and
• generating various control signals for controlling corresponding devices in the system.

A multi-channel direct sequence spread spectrum communication system, comprising:

• a stream separator for dividing an input data stream into a plurality of data sub-stream signals with each data stream signal corresponding to a respective channel;
• a plurality of mapping circuits, wherein a respective mapping circuit is coupled to receive a corresponding data sub-stream signal from the stream separator and maps predetermined-length segments of the respective data sub-stream signal to a signal of a complex number;
• a plurality of multipliers, wherein a respective multiplier is for modulating each spreading code with a corresponding signal of a complex number to generate a direct sequence spread spectrum signal for a corresponding channel;
• a plurality of switches, wherein a respective switch is for controlling on and off a corresponding channel;
• a signal combiner, receiving the direct sequence spread spectrum signals from the switches, for algebraically combining the plurality of direct sequence spread spectrum signals from each of the active channels to form a multi-channel direct sequence spread spectrum signal consisting of an in-phase multi-channel direct sequence spread spectrum signal and a quadrature multi-channel spread spectrum signal;
• a plurality of scalers for scaling the multi-channel direct sequence spread spectrum signal so that the signal strength is invariable with the number of active channels;
• and
• a plurality of subdemodulators, wherein a respective subdemodulator is for demodulating the corresponding direct sequence spread spectrum signal bore in the multi-channel direct sequence spread spectrum signal to regenerate the data stream of the corresponding channel.