Pseudorandom noise

In cryptography, pseudorandom noise (PRN ) is a signal similar to noise which satisfies one or more of the standard tests for statistical randomness. Although it seems to lack any definite pattern, pseudorandom noise consists of a deterministic sequence of pulses that will repeat itself after its period. In cryptographic devices, the pseudorandom noise pattern is determined by a key and the repetition period can be very long, even millions of digits. Pseudorandom noise is used in some electronic musical instruments, either by itself or as an input to subtractive synthesis, and in many white noise machines. In spread-spectrum systems, the receiver correlates a locally generated signal with the received signal. Such spread-spectrum systems require a set of one or more 'codes' or 'sequences' such that In a direct-sequence spread spectrum system, each bit in the pseudorandom binary sequence is known as a chip and the inverse of its period as chip rate; compare bit rate and symbol rate. In a frequency-hopping spread spectrum sequence, each value in the pseudorandom sequence is known as a channel number and the inverse of its period as the hop rate. FCC Part 15 mandates at least 50 different channels and at least a 2.5 Hz hop rate for narrow band frequency-hopping systems. GPS satellites broadcast data at a rate of 50 data bits per second – each satellite modulates its data with one PN bit stream at 1.023 million chips per second and the same data with another PN bit stream at 10.23 million chips per second.GPS receivers correlate the received PN bit stream with a local reference to measure distance. GPS is a receive-only system that uses relative timing measurements from several satellites (and the known positions of the satellites) to determine receiver position.