Lecture 15

Decoding Procedure for BCH Codes --

The Fundamental Approach

Introduction
Let the transmitted codeword be

v( x) v0 v1 x v2 x 2 ...... vn 1 x n 1
Then the received code vector can be expressed as

r ( x) r0 r1 x r2 x ...... rn 1 x
2

n 1

If e(x) is the error pattern, r(x)= v(x)+e(x)

Decoding starts with the computation of syndrome. For a t error correcting BCH code, the syndrome is a 2t-tuple,

S ( S1 , S2 ,........, S2t ) rH where H is defined in the

T

basic form with 2t rows.

The ith component of the syndrome is Si r ( i ) r0 r1 i r2 2i ...... rn 1 ( n 1)i for 1 i 2t

Computation of Syndrome Components

The syndrome components are elements of GF(2m) Dividing r(x) by the minimal polynomial

i ( x) of , we get r ( x) ai ( x)i ( x) bi ( x)
i

Since i ( ) 0, we have Si r ( ) bi ( )
i i i

Ie. The Syndrome components can be obtained by evaluating bi(x) with x=i

As the syndrome depends only on the error pattern

Si e( i ) for 1 i 2t

Suppose that the error pattern e(x) has v errors j j j at locations X 1 , X 2 ,...... X v , then

e( x) X j X j ...... X j where 0 j1 j2 .... jv n

1 2 v

From these we can form the following set of equations:

S1 .......
j1 j2 j1 3 j2 3

jv

S 2 ( j1 ) 2 ( j2 ) 2 ....... ( jv ) 2 S3 ( ) ( ) ....... ( ) . . S 2t ( ) ( ) ....... ( )

j1 2 t j1 j2 2 t jv 2 t jv 3

..(A)

where , ,.......,
j2

jv

are unknown.

Any method of solving these equations is a decoding algorithm for BCH Codes

Once , ,......., have been found, the powers j1,j2..jv tell us the error locations in e(x) In general eqn(A) have many possible solutions. Each solution yields a different error pattern. If v t , the solution that produces an error pattern with the smallest number of errors is the right solution. For large t, solving eqn(A) directly is difficult and ineffective.
j1 j2 jv

The Basic Method