Burst Errors

Burst Errors

• Burst errors are very common, in particular in wireless environments where a fade will affect a group of bits in transit. The length of the burst is dependent on the duration of the fade.

• One way to counter burst errors, is to break up a transmission into shorter words and create a block (one word per row), then have a parity check per word.

• The words are then sent column by column. When a burst error occurs, it will affect 1 bit in several words as the transmission is read back into the block format and each word is checked individually.

Using Polynomials

• We can use a polynomial to represent a binary word.

• Each bit from right to left is mapped onto a power term.

• The rightmost bit represents the “0” power term. The bit next to it the “1” power term, etc.

• If the bit is of value zero, the power term is deleted from the expression.