Correction of Burst Errors Containing Bit Slippages for Cyclic Block Codes

Abstract

Conventional burst error correction techniques for (n,k) cyclic block codes cannot cope with the presence of bit slippages that frequently occur in conjunction with burst errors of the bit inversion variety. A technique is described to enable the correction of an (n,k) cyclic code subjected to a noise disturbance consisting of an arbitrary number of both bit deletions and bit inversions contained within a single error burst. An efficient implementation of a Burst/Deletion Correction Decoder is presented. Although bit insertion correction is conceptually similar to that of bit deletions, the decoder implementation for combined insertion and inversion correction within a burst is much more cumbersome. The probabilities of false correction are analyzed.