 rejected or dismissed as corresponding to an incorrect syn- chronization condition as soon as any dwell output fails to satisfy its thresh- old exceedance test. All other types of verification modes of operation, often referred to as search/lock strategies [9], employ algorithms which require repeated threshold testing of a given dwell output or use a major- ity logic type of decision on the total set of multiple dwell threshold tests (coincidence detectors). Finally, the category of variable integration time detectors is reserved for those cases where the dwell time, here being the time for a continuously inte- grated stochastic process to exceed a threshold, is a random variable. As such, the various PN acquisition systems that contain a variable integration time detector typically employ the classical method of sequential detection [10], which finds its roots in the detection of radar signals [11]. The next classification of detector structures is in accordance with the rate at which decisions are made on each code phase position under test. High decision rate detectors, such as those used in matched filter (passive corre- lation) PN acquisition systems [12], [13], refer to those structures that make their decisions on the out-of-sync code phase offsets between incoming and local codes at the PN code chip rate or an integer multiple of it. Low deci- sion rate detectors, which employ active correlation, make these same deci- sions at a rate significantly slower than the code chip rate. As such, many of these structures employ little or no verification. To complete our classification of detector types, we further categorize them according to the criterion used for deciding between in-sync and out-of-sync hypotheses, e.g., Bayes (minimum average risk), Neyman- Pearson (minimum probability of an error of the second kind-missed detection-for a given probability of an error of the first kind-false alarm), etc. A summary of the above classification of the structure of detectors used for PN acquisition purposes is il