3F4 Error Control Coding

Dr. I. J. Wassell
 Introduction
Error Control Coding (ECC)
Extra bits are added to the data at the
transmitter (redundancy) to permit error
detection or correction at the receiver
Done to prevent the output of erroneous bits
despite noise and other imperfections in the
channel
The positions of the error control coding and
decoding are shown in the transmission model
 Transmission Model
Error Modulator
Digital Source
Control
Line X(w)
(Transmit
Source Encoder Coding
Coding Filter, etc)
Hc(w) Channel
Transmitter
N(w) Noise
+
Error Demod
Digital Source Line
Control (Receive
Sink Decoder
Decoding
Decoding
Filter, etc)
Y(w)

Receiver
 Error Models
Binary Symmetric Memoryless Channel
Assumes transmitted symbols are binary
Errors affect 0s and 1s with equal
probability (i.e., symmetric)
Errors occur randomly and are independent
from bit to bit (memoryless)
1-p
0 0 p is the probability of
p
bit error or the Bit
IN OUT Error Rate (BER) of
p
1 1 the channel
1-p
 Error Models
Many other types
Burst errors, i.e., contiguous bursts of bit
errors
output from DFE (error propagation)
common in radio channels
Insertion, deletion and transposition errors
We will consider mainly random errors
 Error Control Techniques
Error detection in a block of data
Can then request a retransmission, known as
automatic repeat request (ARQ) for sensitive
data
Appropriate for
Low delay channels
Channels with a return path
Not appropriate for delay sensitive data, e.g.,
real time speech and data
 Error Control Techniques
Forward Error Correction (FEC)
Coding designed so that errors can be corrected
at the receiver
Appropriate for delay sensitive and one-way
transmission (e.g., broadcast TV) of data
Two main types, namely block codes and
convolutional codes. We will only look at block
codes
 Block Codes
We will consider only binary data
Data is grouped into blocks of length k bits
(dataword)
Each dataword is coded into blocks of
length n bits (codeword), where in general
n>k
This is known as an (n,k) block code
 Block Codes
A vector notation is used for the datawords
and codewords,
Dataword d = (d1 d2.dk)
Codeword c = (c1 c2..cn)
The redundancy introduced by the code is
quantified by the code rate,
Code rate = k/n
i.e., the higher the redundancy, the lower the
code rate
 Block Code - Example
Dataword length k = 4
Codeword length n = 7
This is a (7,4) block code with code rate = 4/7
For example, d = (1101), c = (1101001)
 Error Control Process
Source code Codeword
data chopped (n bits)
101101 1000 into blocks
Channel
1000
Dataword coder
(k bits)

Codeword +
Dataword possible errors
(k bits) (n bits)
Channel Channel
decoder

Error flags
 Error Control Process
Decoder gives corrected data
May also give error flags to
Indicate reliability of decoded data
Helps with schemes employing multiple layers
of error correction
 Parity Codes
Example of a simple block code Single
Parity Check Code
In this case, n = k+1, i.e., the codeword is the
dataword with one additional bit
For even parity the additional bit is,
q i 1 di (mod 2)
k

For odd parity the additional bit is 1-q

That is, the additional bit ensures that there are
an even or odd number of 1s in the
codeword
 Parity Codes Example 1
Even parity
(i) d=(10110) so,
c=(101101)
(ii) d=(11011) so,
c=(110110)
 Parity Codes Example 2
Coding table for (4,3) even parity code

Dataword Codeword
0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 1 0 0 1 1
0 1 0 0 1 0 1
0 1 1 0 1 1 0
1 0 0 1 0 0 1
1 0 1 1 0 1 0
1 1 0 1 1 0 0
1 1 1 1 1 1 1
 Parity Codes
To decode
Calculate sum of received bits in block (mod 2)
If sum is 0 (1) for even (odd) parity then the dataword is the
first k bits of the received codeword
Otherwise error
Code can detect single errors
But cannot correct error since the error could be in
any bit
For example, if the received dataword is (100000) the
transmitted dataword could have been (000000) or
(110000) with the error being in the first or second
place respectively
Note error could also lie in other positions including
the parity bit
 Parity Codes
Known as a single error detecting code
(SED). Only useful if probability of getting
2 errors is small since parity will become
correct again
Used in serial communications
Low overhead but not very powerful
Decoder can be implemented efficiently
using a tree of XOR gates
 Hamming Distance
Error control capability is determined by the
Hamming distance
The Hamming distance between two
codewords is equal to the number of
differences between them, e.g.,
10011011
11010010 have a Hamming distance = 3
Alternatively, can compute by adding
codewords (mod 2)
=01001001 (now count up the ones)
 Hamming Distance
The Hamming distance of a code is equal to
the minimum Hamming distance between
two codewords
If Hamming distance is:
1 no error control capability; i.e., a single error
in a received codeword yields another valid
codeword
XXXXXXX X is a valid codeword
Note that this representation is diagrammatic
only.
In reality each codeword is surrounded by n
codewords. That is, one for every bit that
could be changed
 Hamming Distance
If Hamming distance is:
2 can detect single errors (SED); i.e., a single
error will yield an invalid codeword
XOXOXO X is a valid codeword
O in not a valid codeword
See that 2 errors will yield a valid (but
incorrect) codeword
 Hamming Distance
If Hamming distance is:
3 can correct single errors (SEC) or can detect
double errors (DED)
XOOXOOX X is a valid codeword
O in not a valid codeword
See that 3 errors will yield a valid but
incorrect codeword
 Hamming Distance - Example
Hamming distance 3 code, i.e., SEC/DED
Or can perform single error correction (SEC)

10011011 X This code corrected this way

11011011 O
11010011 O This code corrected this way
11010010 X

X is a valid codeword
O is an invalid codeword
 Hamming Distance
The maximum number of detectable errors is

dmin 1
That is the maximum number of correctable errors
is given by,
d min 1
t
2
where dmin is the minimum Hamming distance
between 2 codewords and . means the smallest
integer
 Linear Block Codes
As seen from the second Parity Code
example, it is possible to use a table to hold
all the codewords for a code and to look-up
the appropriate codeword based on the
supplied dataword
Alternatively, it is possible to create
codewords by addition of other codewords.
This has the advantage that there is now no
longer the need to held every possible
codeword in the table.
 Linear Block Codes
If there are k data bits, all that is required is to
hold k linearly independent codewords, i.e., a set
of k codewords none of which can be produced by
linear combinations of 2 or more codewords in the
set.
The easiest way to find k linearly independent
codewords is to choose those which have 1 in
just one of the first k positions and 0 in the other
k-1 of the first k positions.
 Linear Block Codes
For example for a (7,4) code, only four
codewords are required, e.g.,
1 0 0 0 1 1 0
0 1 0 0 1 0 1
0 0 1 0 0 1 1
0 0 0 1 1 1 1

So, to obtain the codeword for dataword 1011,

the first, third and fourth codewords in the list are
added together, giving 1011010
This process will now be described in more detail
 Linear Block Codes
An (n,k) block code has code vectors
d=(d1 d2.dk) and
c=(c1 c2..cn)
The block coding process can be written as
c=dG
where G is the Generator Matrix
a11 a12 ... a1n a1
a
21 a22 ... a2n a 2
G
. . ... . .

ak1 ak 2 ... akn a k
 Linear Block Codes
Thus,
k
c dia i
i 1

ai must be linearly independent, i.e.,

Since codewords are given by summations
of the ai vectors, then to avoid 2 datawords
having the same codeword the ai vectors
must be linearly independent
 Linear Block Codes
Sum (mod 2) of any 2 codewords is
also a codeword, i.e.,
Since for datawords d1 and d2 we have;
d3 d1 d 2
So,
k k k k
c 3 d 3i a i (d1i d 2i )a i d1i a i d 2i a i
i 1 i 1 i 1 i 1

c3 c1 c2
 Linear Block Codes
0 is always a codeword, i.e.,
Since all zeros is a dataword then,
k
c 0 ai 0
i 1
 Error Correcting Power of LBC
The Hamming distance of a linear block code (LBC)
is simply the minimum Hamming weight (number of
1s or equivalently the distance from the all 0
codeword) of the non-zero codewords
Note d(c1,c2) = w(c1+ c2) as shown previously
For an LBC, c1+ c2=c3
So min (d(c1,c2)) = min (w(c1+ c2)) = min (w(c3))
Therefore to find min Hamming distance just need to
search among the 2k codewords to find the min
Hamming weight far simpler than doing a pair
wise check for all possible codewords.
Linear Block Codes example 1
For example a (4,2) code, suppose;
1 0 1 1 a1 = [1011]
G
0 1 0 1 a2 = [0101]
For d = [1 1], then;
1 0 1 1
0 1 0 1
c
_ _ _ _
1 1 1 0
Linear Block Codes example 2
A (6,5) code with
1 0 0 0 0 1
0 1 0 0 0 1

G 0 0 1 0 0 1

0 0 0 1 0 1

0 0 0 0 1 1

Is an even single parity code
 Systematic Codes
For a systematic block code the dataword
appears unaltered in the codeword usually
at the start
The generator matrix has the structure,
k R R=n-k
1 0 .. 0 p11 p12 .. p1R
0 1 .. 0 p21 p22 .. p2 R
G I | P
.. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..

0 0 .. 1 pk1 pk 2 .. pkR

P is often referred to as parity bits

 Systematic Codes
I is k*k identity matrix. Ensures dataword
appears as beginning of codeword
P is k*R matrix.
 Decoding Linear Codes
One possibility is a ROM look-up table
In this case received codeword is used as an address
Example Even single parity check code;
Address Data
000000 0
000001 1
000010 1
000011 0
.
Data output is the error flag, i.e., 0 codeword ok,
If no error, dataword is first k bits of codeword
For an error correcting code the ROM can also store
datawords
 Decoding Linear Codes
Another possibility is algebraic decoding,
i.e., the error flag is computed from the
received codeword (as in the case of simple
parity codes)
How can this method be extended to more
complex error detection and correction
codes?
 Parity Check Matrix
A linear block code is a linear subspace Ssub of all
length n vectors (Space S)
Consider the subset Snull of all length n vectors in
space S that are orthogonal to all length n vectors
in Ssub
It can be shown that the dimensionality of Snull is
n-k, where n is the dimensionality of S and k is the
dimensionality of Ssub
It can also be shown that Snull is a valid subspace
of S and consequently Ssub is also the null space
of Snull
 Parity Check Matrix
Snull can be represented by its basis vectors. In this
case the generator basis vectors (or generator
matrix H) denote the generator matrix for Snull - of
dimension n-k = R
This matrix is called the parity check matrix of the
code defined by G, where G is obviously the
generator matrix for Ssub- of dimension k
Note that the number of vectors in the basis
defines the dimension of the subspace
 Parity Check Matrix
So the dimension of H is n-k (= R) and all vectors
in the null space are orthogonal to all the vectors
of the code
Since the rows of H, namely the vectors bi are
members of the null space they are orthogonal to
any code vector
So a vector y is a codeword only if yHT=0
Note that a linear block code can be specified by
either G or H
 Parity Check Matrix
So H is used to check if a codeword is valid,

b11 b12 ... b1n b1

b b22 ... b2 n b 2
H 21 R=n-k
. . ... . .

bR1 bR 2 ... bRn b R
The rows of H, namely, bi, are chosen to be
orthogonal to rows of G, namely ai
Consequently the dot product of any valid
codeword with any bi is zero
 Parity Check Matrix
This is so since,
k
c dia i
i 1

and so,
k k
b j .c b j . d i a i d i (a i .b j ) 0
i 1 i 1

This means that a codeword is valid (but not

necessarily correct) only if cHT = 0. To ensure this
it is required that the rows of H are independent
and are orthogonal to the rows of G
That is the bi span the remaining R (= n - k)
dimensions of the codespace
 Parity Check Matrix
For example consider a (3,2) code. In this case G has 2
rows, a1 and a2
Consequently all valid codewords sit in the subspace (in
this case a plane) spanned by a1 and a2
In this example the H matrix has only one row, namely
b1. This vector is orthogonal to the plane containing the
rows of the G matrix, i.e., a1 and a2
Any received codeword which is not in the plane
containing a1 and a2 (i.e., an invalid codeword) will thus
have a component in the direction of b1 yielding a non-
zero dot product between itself and b1
 Parity Check Matrix
Similarly, any received codeword which is
in the plane containing a1 and a2 (i.e., a
valid codeword) will not have a component
in the direction of b1 yielding a zero dot
product between itself and b1
c1
a2 c2
a1

c3

b1
 Error Syndrome
For error correcting codes we need a method to
compute the required correction
To do this we use the Error Syndrome, s of a
received codeword, cr
s = crHT
If cr is corrupted by the addition of an error vector,
e, then
cr = c + e
and
s = (c + e) HT = cHT + eHT
s = 0 + eHT
Syndrome depends only on the error
 Error Syndrome
That is, we can add the same error pattern to
different codewords and get the same syndrome.
There are 2(n - k) syndromes but 2n error patterns
For example for a (3,2) code there are 2 syndromes and
8 error patterns
Clearly no error correction possible in this case
Another example. A (7,4) code has 8 syndromes and
128 error patterns.
With 8 syndromes we can provide a different value to
indicate single errors in any of the 7 bit positions as
well as the zero value to indicate no errors
Now need to determine which error pattern caused
the syndrome
 Error Syndrome
For systematic linear block codes, H is
constructed as follows,
G = [ I | P] and so H = [-PT | I]
where I is the k*k identity for G and the
R*R identity for H
Example, (7,4) code, dmin= 3
1 0 0 0 0 1 1
0 0 1 1 1 1 0 0
1
G I | P
0
1
0
0
1
0
0
1
1
0
1 0

H - P T | I 1 0 1 1 0 1 0
1 1 0 1 0 0 1
0 0 0 1 1 1 1
 Error Syndrome - Example
For a correct received codeword cr = [1101001]
In this case,
0 1 1
1 0 1

1 1 0

s c r H T 1 1 0 1 0 0 11 1 1 0 0 0
1 0 0

0 1 0
0 1
0
 Error Syndrome - Example
For the same codeword, this time with an
error in the first bit position, i.e.,
cr = [1101000]
0 1 1
1 0 1

1 1 0

s c r H T 1 1 0 1 0 0 01 1 1 0 0 1
1 0 0

0 1 0
0 1
0

In this case a syndrome 001 indicates an

error in bit 1 of the codeword
 Comments about H
The minimum distance of the code is equal
to the minimum number of columns (non-
zero) of H which sum to zero
We can express
d0
d
c r H T [cr 0 , cr1 ,..., cr n 1 ] 1 cr 0d 0 cr1d1 ... cr n 1d n 1
.

n 1
d

Where do, d1, dn-1 are the column vectors of H

Clearly crHT is a linear combination of the

columns of H
 Comments about H
For a codeword with weight w (i.e., w
ones), then crHT is a linear combination of w
columns of H.
Thus we have a one-to-one mapping
between weight w codewords and linear
combinations of w columns of H
Thus the min value of w is that which
results in crHT=0, i.e., codeword cr will have
a weight w (w ones) and so dmin = w
 Comments about H
For the example code, a codeword with min
weight (dmin = 3) is given by the first row of
G, i.e., [1000011]
Now form linear combination of first and
last 2 cols in H, i.e., [011]+[010]+[001] = 0
So need min of 3 columns (= dmin) to get a
zero value of cHT in this example
 Standard Array
From the standard array we can find the
most likely transmitted codeword given a
particular received codeword without
having to have a look-up table at the
decoder containing all possible codewords
in the standard array
Not surprisingly it makes use of syndromes
 Standard Array
The Standard Array is constructed as follows,

c1 (all zero) c2 cM s0
e1 c2+e1 cM+e1 s1 All patterns in
e2 c2+e2 cM+e2 s2 row have same
e3 c2+e3 cM+e3 s3 syndrome
Different rows
eN c2+eN cM+eN sN have distinct
syndromes

The array has 2k columns (i.e., equal to the

number of valid codewords) and 2R rows
(i.e., the number of syndromes)
 Standard Array
The standard array is formed by initially
choosing ei to be,
All 1 bit error patterns
All 2 bit error patterns

Ensure that each error pattern not already in
the array has a new syndrome. Stop when
all syndromes are used
 Standard Array
Imagine that the received codeword (cr) is c2 + e3
(shown in bold in the standard array)
The most likely codeword is the one at the head of
the column containing c2 + e3
The corresponding error pattern is the one at the
beginning of the row containing c2 + e3
So in theory we could implement a look-up table
(in a ROM) which could map all codewords in the
array to the most likely codeword (i.e., the one at
the head of the column containing the received
codeword)
This could be quite a large table so a more simple
way is to use syndromes
 Standard Array
This block diagram shows the proposed
implementation
s e
Compute Look-up
syndrome table

cr c
+
 Standard Array
For the same received codeword c2 + e3, note that the
unique syndrome is s3
This syndrome identifies e3 as the corresponding error
pattern
So if we calculate the syndrome as described
previously, i.e., s = crHT
All we need to do now is to have a relatively small
table which associates s with their respective error
patterns. In the example s3 will yield e3
Finally we subtract (or equivalently add in modulo 2
arithmetic) e3 from the received codeword (c2 + e3) to
yield the most likely codeword, c2
 Hamming Codes
We will consider a special class of SEC codes
(i.e., Hamming distance = 3) where,
Number of parity bits R = n k and n = 2R 1
Syndrome has R bits
0 value implies zero errors
2R 1 other syndrome values, i.e., one for each
bit that might need to be corrected
This is achieved if each column of H is a different
binary word remember s = eHT
 Hamming Codes
Systematic form of (7,4) Hamming code is,
1 0 0 0 0 1 1
0 0 1 1 1 1 0 0
1
G I | P
0
1
0
0
1
0
0
1
1
0
1 0

H - P T | I 1 0 1 1 0 1 0
1 1 0 1 0 0 1
0 0 0 1 1 1 1

The original form is non-systematic,

1 1 1 0 0 0 0
1 0 0 0 1 1 1 1
0
H 0 1 1 0 0 1 1
0 0 1 1 0
G
0 1 0 1 0 1 0
1 0 1 0 1 0 1
1 1 0 1 0 0 1
Compared with the systematic code, the
column orders of both G and H are swapped
so that the columns of H are a binary count
 Hamming Codes
The column order is now 7, 6, 1, 5, 2, 3, 4,
i.e., col. 1 in the non-systematic H is col. 7
in the systematic H.
 Hamming Codes - Example
For a non-systematic (7,4) code
d = 1011
c = 1110000
+ 0101010
+ 1101001
= 0110011

e = 0010000
cr= 0100011

s = crHT = eHT = 011

Note the error syndrome is the binary address of
the bit to be corrected
 Hamming Codes
Double errors will always result in wrong
bit being corrected, since
A double error is the sum of 2 single errors
The resulting syndrome will be the sum of the
corresponding 2 single error syndromes
This syndrome will correspond with a third
single bit error
Consequently the corrected codeword will
now contain 3 bit errors, i.e., the original
double bit error plus the incorrectly corrected
bit!
 Bit Error Rates after Decoding
For a given channel bit error rate (BER),
what is the BER after correction (assuming
a memoryless channel, i.e., no burst errors)?
To do this we will compute the probability
of receiving 0, 1, 2, 3, . errors
And then compute their effect
 Bit Error Rates after Decoding
Example A (7,4) Hamming code with a channel
BER of 1%, i.e., p = 0.01
P(0 errors received) = (1 p)7 = 0.9321
P(1 error received) = 7p(1 p)6 = 0.0659
76 2
P(2 errors received) p (1 p)5 0.002
2
P(3 or more errors) = 1 P(0) P(1) P(2) = 0.000034
 Bit Error Rates after Decoding
Single errors are corrected, so,
0.9321+ 0.0659 = 0.998 codewords are
correctly detected
Double errors cause 3 bit errors in a 7 bit
codeword, i.e., (3/7)*4 bit errors per 4 bit
dataword, that is 3/7 bit errors per bit.
Therefore the double error contribution is
0.002*3/7 = 0.000856
 Bit Error Rates after Decoding
The contribution of triple or more errors
will be less than 0.000034 (since the worst
that can happen is that every databit
becomes corrupted)
So the BER after decoding is approximately
0.000856 + 0.000034 = 0.0009 = 0.09%
This is an improvement over the channel
BER by a factor of about 11
 Perfect Codes
If a codeword has n bits and we wish to
correct up to t errors, how many parity bits
(R) are needed?
Clearly we need sufficient error syndromes
(2R of them) to identify all error patterns up
to t errors
Need 1 syndrome to represent 0 errors
Need n syndromes to represent all 1 bit errors
Need n(n-1)/2 to syndromes to represent all 2
bit errors
Need nCe = n!/(n-e)!e! syndromes to represent
all e bit errors
 Perfect Codes
So,
2R 1 n to correct up to 1 error
n(n - 1)
1 n to correct up to 2 errors
2
n(n - 1) n(n - 1)(n - 2)
1 n to correct up to 3 errors
2 6
If equality then code is Perfect
Only known perfect codes are SEC Hamming
codes and TEC Golay (23,12) code (dmin=7).
Using previous equation yields
23(23 - 1) 23(23 - 1)(23 - 2)
1 23 2048 211 2( 2312)
2 6
 Summary
In this section we have
Used block codes to add redundancy to
messages to control the effects of transmission
errors
Encoded and decoded messages using
Hamming codes
Determined overall bit error rates as a function
of the error control strategy