This paper presents a novel technique for blindly starting up a minimum-mea
n-squared-error (MMSE) receiver for a user newly entering a code-division m
ultiple-access (CDMA) system. It is assumed that only one user at a time is
admitted into the system and that data before and after the onset of the n
ew transmission are available. The technique is based on the generalized ei
gendecomposition of the two corresponding autocorrelation matrices (before
and after the new user is admitted). In general, the two autocorrelation ma
trices differ by a low-rank matrix contributed by the autocorrelation of th
e new user signal. This fact yields the useful property that the generalize
d eigenvectors corresponding to the minimum eigenvalue span the noise subsp
ace of the low-rank signal term. Exploiting this subspace relation, the sig
nature of the new laser can be identified. If, in particular, the differenc
e between the two autocorrelation matrices is exactly a rank-one matrix, th
en there is only one maximum eigenvalue, and the corresponding eigenvector
coincides with the MMSE receiver corresponding to the rank-one signal term,
These properties are also applicable to long-code CDMA systems to provide
an optimal multipath combining method.