ERROR CONTROL; DETECTION & CORRECTION
parity checker will not detect it because when the
Data/Digital Communication Error can be generally
classified into:
1. Single Bit Error– only one bit within the given data string
is in error
- Affects only one character within the message
2. Multiple Bit Error – when two or more nonconsecutive
bits within a given data strings are in error
- Affects more character in a message
3. Burst Error – when two or more consecutive bits within a
given data string are in error
Two Basic Types of Error:
1. Lost Message – one that never arrives at the destination
- arrives but has been damaged and unrecognizable
2. Damaged Message – arrives at the destination but has one or
two errors.
Probability of Error
-the theoretical (mathematical) expectation of the rate at which
error will occur
Bit Error Rate
- The actual historical record of a systems performance
Error Control can be divided into:
I. ERROR DETECTION
- Process of monitoring data and determining when
transmission errors have occurred
- Indicated when an error has occurred to prevent
undetected errors from occurring
Most Common Error Detector
A. REDUNDANCY
- Each data is sent multiple times which are then
compared at the receivers end
- Character redundancy – for data with one character
- Message redundancy – if the data is the entire
message
- An error will occur if the data is not received twice
in succession in exactly the same order
Redundancy Checking
- Adding bits for the sole purpose of detecting
errors
4 Basic Types of Redundancy Checking
a.1. Vertical Redundancy Checking
- Used for asynchronous data communication
systems
- Referred to as character parity or parity
- A single bit is added (parity bit) is added to each
character to force the total number of logic 1s in
the character, including the parity bit to either an
odd number (odd parity) or an even number (even
parity)
- Primary advantage is its simplicity
- If even numbers of bits are received in error, the
logic condition of an even number bits is
changed, the parity remains the same
- Odd parity is usually use, does not identify which
character is in error
Ex. ASCII Letter C is 43 hex or P1000011 binary:
P is the Parity: for ODD Parity (P=logic 0)
For EVEN Parity (P=logic 1)
- Other forms of parity
a. Space parity – parity bit always a 0
b. Marking parity – parity bit always a 1
c. No Parity – the parity bit is not seen or checked
d. Ignored Parity – parity bit is always zero and is
ignored
- Allows receiver that are incapable
of checking parity to communicate with the devices
that uses parity
a.2.Checksum
- The data within a message is summed together to
produce an error checking character (checksum)that is
appended at the end of the message
- Receiver replicates the summing operation and
determines its own sum and checksum character for
the message.
- It is then compared to the checksum appended to the
message; no errors are transmitted if they are the
same, errors occurred if the two values differ.
- Five Primary Ways of Calculating a Checksum
a.2.1.Check Character Checksum
- A decimal value is assigned to each character
and they are added together to produce the
checksum character appended at the end of the
message
- Ex. Code 39 and POSTNET bar code
a.2.2.Single Precision Checksum
- Checksum is calculated by simply performing
binary addition of the data within the message
- If the sum of the data exceeds 2n-1 where n is
the number of bits in each character, a carry-
out occurs and is ignored
Example:
a.2.2.Determine the single-precision checksum for the
following five-character ASCII message: HELLO
a.2.3.Double Precision Checksum
- computed in the same manner as with single-
precision except the checksum is 2n bits long
- ex. If the data is comprised of 8-bit character, the
check sum would be 16 bits
- reduces the probability of producing erroneous
checksum

a.2.4.Honeywell Checksum
- 2n bits long where the checksum is based on the
interleaving consecutive data words to form
double-length words are summed together to
produce a double-precision checksum
Example a.2.4:
Determine the Honeywell checksum for the
following four-character ASCII message: HELP
a.2.5. Residue Checksum
- virtually identical to the single-precision
checksum except for the way carry bit are
handled
-the carry bit is wrapped around and added to the
LSB of the sum, adding complexity
a.3. Longitudinal Redundancy Checking
- uses parity to determine if a transmission error has
occurred within a message
- sometimes called message parity
- result of XORingthe “characters” that comprise the
message
- even parity is generally used
- sometimes called Horizontal Redundancy Checking
(HRC)
- bit sequence is often called Block Check Sequence
(BCS) or Frame Check Sequence (FCS)
- detects 95% to 98% error
- does not identify which character is in error
Example a.3:
Determine the VRC and the LRC for the following ASCII-
encoded message CAT. Use odd parity for VRCs and even
parity for the LRC
a.4. Cyclic Redundancy Checking
- most reliable technique for error detection
- a convolutional coding
- CRC-ITU : European Standard 16-bit CRC-generating
polynomial
- CRC-32 : for point-to-point synchronous data
transmission
- CRC-12 : 12-bit redundancy code used for
transmission of data stream comprised of six-byte
- CRC-16 : 16 bits are used for block check sequence
- The entire data stream is treated as long continuous
binary number
- Systematic code
- Written as (n, k) ; n=bit length of transmission, k=bit
length of the message
- Detects all single bits error and all double-bit error
provided that the divisor contains at least three logic
1, all odd number of bit error provided that the bit
divisor is 11, all error burst of 16 or less, and 99.9%
of error burst greater than 16 bits long
- Mathematically, CRC is expressed as:
𝐺(𝑥)
= 𝐺 𝑥 + 𝑅(𝑥)
𝑃(𝑥)
Where: G(x) = message polynomial
P(x) = generator polynomial
R(x) = remainder
How do we compute R (the check bits)?
1. Choose a generator string G of length r+1 bits
2. Choose R such that T is a multiple of
G (T = A*G, for some A)
3. Now when T is divided by G there will be no
remainder =>no error
4. Let R = remainder of M 2r/G and T will be a multiple
of G
5. Choice of G is a critical parameter for the performance
of a CRC
6. Let T’ be the received sequence
7. Divide T’ by G
– If remainder = 0 assume no errors
– If remainder is non zero errors must have occurred
Example A.4:
B. ECHOPLEX / ECHO CHECKING
- Receiving devices retransmit received data back to the
transmitting device
- Requires full-duplex transmission
- a wrong character will be seen in the transmitting
station if an error will occur then the operator sends
back-space and remove the erroneous character and
then type and resend the correct character
C. EXACT-COUNTING ENCODING
- The number of 0’s and 1’s in each character is the
same
- Ex. Code 39 Bar Code – 9-bit w/ 3 logic1bits
- POSTNET Bar Code – 5-bit w/ 2 logic1 bits
-ARQ character – 7-bit w/ 3 logic1 and 4 logic 0
- Error can be recognized if a certain number of 1 or
zero in a character is lacking
II. ERROR CORRECTION Sample Problem:

A. RETRANSMISSION(BACKWARD ERROR
CORRECTION)
- when receive station request the transmit station to
resend a message (portion of the message) when the
message is received in error that is often called ARQ (
automatic retransmission request)
For a 12-bit data string 101100010010, determine the number
of Hamming bits required, arbitrarily place the Hamming bits
into the data string, determine the logic condition of each
hamming bit, assume an arbitrary single-bit transmission error,
and prove that the Hamming code will successfully detect an
error.

Forms of Overhead
1. acknowledgement – when the recipients of data sends
short messages back to the sender acknowledging
receipt of the last transmission,
- can either be positive
acknowledgement (successful transmission)
negative acknowledgement (unsuccessful
transmission)

2. line turnarounds–when a receive station becomes the

transmit station

Two Types of ARQ

1. Discrete ARQ –use acknowledgements to indicate the
successful and unsuccessful reception of data
- positive acknowledgement- if the message is
received correctly
- negative acknowledgement – if the message
received contains error

2. Continuous ARQ – when messages are divided into

smaller blocks or frames that are sequentially
numbered and transmitted in succession without
waiting for acknowledgement between blocks.
- selective repeat- use to call for retransmission of the
entire message or only a portion of the message

B. HAMMING CODE(FORWARD ERROR

CORRECTION)

Hamming Code –an error-correcting code used for

correcting transmission errors in synchronous data
streams
- requires the addition of overhead
message to the message increasing the length of the
transmission

Hamming Bits – must be able to identify which bit is in

error and indicate at least m + n + 1 different codes
- the number of hamming bits is indicated by

2n> m + n + 1

Where: n = number of Hamming bits

m = number of bits in each data