Introduction to Error-Correcting Codes Michael Purser Artech House Boston e LondonLibrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Purser, Michael, 1937- Introduction to error-correcting codes Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-89006-784-8 1. Signal processing. 2. Error-correcting codes (Information theory) I. Title TK5102.9.P87 1995 94-32112 621.382°2-de20 CIP British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Purser, Michael Introduction to Error-correcting Codes I. Title 621-382 ISBN 0-89006-784-8 © 1995 ARTECH HOUSE, INC. 685 Canton Street Norwood, MA 02062 All rights reserved. Printed and bound in the United States of America. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy- ing, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. International Standard Book Number: 0-89006-784-8 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 94-3212, 100987654321Contents Preface Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 Bit Strings ond Codes 1.1.1 Codes and Error Correction 1.1.2 Erasures and Soft-Decision Decoding 1.2 Hamming Distance and Sphere-Packing 1.3 Shannon’s Theorem Chapter 2 Linear Codes 2.1 Matrix Representation 2.1.1 The Standard Array 2.1.2. The Generator Matrix 2.2. The Null Matrix or Parity-Check Matrix 2.2.1 The Syndrome 2.2.2. The Columns of the Null Matrix 2.3 Perfect Codes 2.4 Further Bounds on Linear Codes 2.4.1 The Varsharmov-Gilbert Bound 2.4.2. The Plotkin Bound 2.4.3 Bounds in Practice 2.5 Nonbinary Linear Codes 2.5.1. Nonbinary Codes with Characteristic 2 Chapter 3. Cyclic Codes 3.1 The Generating Polynomial 3.1.1 Systematic Cyclic Codes 3.2. The Roots of g(x) and the Null Matrix