On the average near-far resistance for MMSE detection of direct sequence CDMA signals with random spreading

The performance of a near-far-resistant, finite-complexity, minimum mean squared error (MMSE) linear detector for demodulating direct sequence (DS) code-division multiple access (CDMA) signals is studied, assuming that the users are assigned random signature sequences. We obtain tight upper and lower bounds on the expected near-far resistance of the MMSE detector, averaged over signature sequences and delays, as a function of the processing gain and the number of users. Since the MMSE detector is optimally near-far-resistant, these bounds apply to any multiuser detector that uses the same observation interval and sampling rate. The lower bound on near-far resistance implies that, even without power control, linear multiuser detection provides near-far-resistant performance for a number of users that grows linearly with the processing gain.