Crosscorrelation properties of pseudorandom and related sequences

Binary maximal-length linear feedback shift register sequences (m-sequences) have been successfully employed in communications, navigation, and related systems over the past several years. For the early applications, m-sequences were used primarily because of their excellent periodic autocorrelation properties. For many of the recent systems applications, however, the crosscorrelation properties of such sequences are at least as important as the autocorrelation properties, and the system performance depends upon the aperiodic correlation in addition to the periodic correlation. This paper presents a survey of recent results and provides several new results on the periodic and aperiodic crosscorrelation functions for pairs of m-sequences and for pairs of related (but not maximal-length) binary shift register sequences. Also included are several recent results on correlation for complex-valued sequences as well as identities relating the crosscorrelation functions to autocorrelation functions. Examples of problems in spread-spectrum communications are employed to motivate the choice of correlation parameters that are considered in the paper.