Method of optimizing the search for cells in a mobile telecommunication network

1. A method of optimizing a search for cells in a mobile telecommunication network comprising a plurality of cells, each cell accommodating a base station exchanging synchronization data with a mobile device UE via a SCH channel so as to allow subscribers' mobile devices to perform measurements on at least one cell adjacent to a current cell for retrieving a scrambling code specific to said adjacent cell, said synchronization data comprising an integral number of frames, each frame comprising an integral number of slots, and said channel SCH being subdivided into a primary synchronization channel that comprises a primary code C p used for detecting a beginning of a slot, and a secondary channel that comprises a secondary code C s i,k containing N s chips used for detecting a beginning of a frame, the method comprising:

applying a digital filtering to measurement samples collected in a plurality of time windows so as to give a major weight to the measurements performed in most recent time windows.

2. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising:

defining an integral number N f of measurement windows;

initializing slot synchronization via the primary channel PSCH;

for each measurement window k, and for i=1 to N s *N ec , where N s represents a number of chips contained in a secondary code C s i,k , and N ec represents an oversampling frequency of the mobile device, determining a vector P k representing a correlation profile of a signal received by the mobile device with the primary code C p ;

for k=1 to N f , calculating an average vector P m representing an average correlation profile;

for k=1 to N f , applying a digital filtering so as to give a major weight to the most recent measurements;

detecting a maximum peak of the profile P m ; and

identifying a point associated with the maximum peak of the profile P m .

3. The method according to claim 2 , wherein the digital filtering is comprises linear digital filtering, and the linear digital filtering is implemented according to an algorithm comprising:

for i=1 to N s *N ec

P ( i )=(1−λ) P ( i )+λ P k ( i ),

where λ represents a weighting coefficient between 0 and 1.

4. The method according to claim 2 , wherein the digital filtering comprises nonlinear digital filtering.

5. A mobile device UE comprising:

means for exchanging synchronization data with a base station of a telecommunication network via a channel SCH, so as to perform measurements on at least one cell adjacent to a current cell for retrieving a scrambling code specific to said adjacent cell, said synchronization data comprising an integral number of frames, each frame comprising an integral number of slots, and said channel SCH being subdivided into a primary synchronization channel that comprises a primary code C p used for detecting a beginning of a slot, and a secondary synchronization channel that comprises a secondary code C s i,k containing N s chips used for detecting a beginning of a frame; and

means for applying a digital filtering to measurement samples collected in a plurality of time windows so as to give a major weight to the measurements performed in most recent time windows.

6. A method of optimizing a search for cells in a mobile telecommunication network comprising a plurality of cells, each cell accommodating a base station exchanging synchronization data with a mobile device UE via a SCH channel so as to allow subscribers' mobile devices to perform measurements on at least one cell adjacent to a current cell for retrieving a scrambling code specific to said adjacent cell, said synchronization data comprising a plurality of frames comprising a plurality of slots, and said channel SCH including a first synchronization channel that comprises a first code C p used for detecting a beginning of a slot, and a second channel that comprises a second code C s i,k containing N s chips used for detecting a beginning of a frame, the method comprising:

applying a digital filtering to measurement samples collected in a plurality of time windows so as to give a major weight to the measurements performed in most recent time windows.

7. A mobile device, comprising:

an exchange mechanism that exchanges synchronization data with a base station of a telecommunication network via a channel SCH, so as to perform measurements on at least one cell adjacent to a current cell for retrieving a scrambling code specific to said adjacent cell, said synchronization data comprising a plurality of frames, comprising a plurality of slots, and said channel SCH including a first synchronization channel that comprises a first code C p used for detecting a beginning of a slot, and a second synchronization channel that comprises a second code C s i,k containing N s chips used for detecting a beginning of a frame; and

a digital filter that applies a digital filtering to measurement samples collected in a plurality of time windows so as to give a major weight to the measurements performed in most recent time windows.