On a communications network, when a terminal is powered on, it searches for a cell and finds a cell as soon as possible for camping. After successfully camping on a certain cell, the terminal may further search for an intra-frequency neighboring cell or an inter-frequency neighboring cell to make preparation for cell reselection or handover.
In the prior art, a pipeline-based method for a cell search is provided and the method adopts a multiframe accumulation method to improve cell search performance. The method is specifically as follows: calculating primary synchronization signal (PSS) relevant information in a corresponding time unit according to a time-domain signal received by a terminal in each time unit, calculating secondary synchronization signal (SSS) relevant information in a second time unit according to PSS relevant information calculated in a first time unit and a time-domain signal received by the terminal in the second time unit, and caching the SSS relevant information in the second time unit; calculating SSS relevant information in a third time unit according to the PSS relevant information calculated in the first time unit and a time-domain signal received by the terminal in the third time unit, accumulating the SSS relevant information in the third time unit and the cached SSS relevant information, calculating a cell search result according to the accumulated SSS relevant information, and clearing the cached SSS relevant information; calculating SSS relevant information in a fourth time unit according to PSS relevant information calculated in the third time unit and a time-domain signal received by the terminal in the fourth time unit and caching the SSS relevant information in the fourth time unit; and calculating SSS relevant information in a fifth time unit according to the PSS relevant information calculated in the third time unit and a time-domain signal received by the terminal in the fifth time unit, accumulating the SSS relevant information in the fifth time unit and the cached SSS relevant information, calculating a cell search result according to the accumulated SSS relevant information, and clearing the cached SSS relevant information. If the search continues, the preceding process is repeated and the number of accumulations can be set as required.
During implementation of the present invention, the inventor finds at least the following problems in the prior art:
The pipeline-based method for a cell search cannot ensure that a cell search result exists in each time unit. For example, in the preceding process, no cell search results are calculated in the second time unit and the fourth time unit. This slows down an initial search and leads to a long search delay.