Reed-Solomon Coding as a Multipath Fading Countermeasure for PCM/FM Aeronautical Telemetry

Abstract

This paper evaluates the use of Reed-Solomon error correcting codes as a countermeasure for the bursty errors caused by multipath fading seen in aeronautical telemetry channels. The tradeoff between code rate and interleaving depth is analyzed and an equation for predicting the code rate given a fixed burst length and interleaving depth is presented. Close agreement is found between predictions made by this equation and simulated results.