Efficient Error Detection and Correction in Block Data Transmission

Abstract

The rapid advances of communication technologies that aim to increase the information transmission speeds, aggravate problems of reliable data exchanges. Especially the expansion of the use of wireless telecommunications technologies is accompanied by a noticeable increase of the intensity of the electromagnetic field and consequently by an increase in the number of errors caused by external interference. The importance of the classical criteria, such as the number of control bits, is reduced and more attention is paid to other parameters, such as the computational and temporal complexity of the procedures for correcting errors, as well as transmission energy requirements. The above factors dictate the necessity for sufficient developments of the means for ensuring the reliability of communication systems, including methods for data transmission error correction. This chapter proposes a collection of techniques for correcting transmission burst errors in data transmitted over signal channels suffering from strong electromagnetic interference, such as encountered in distributed and embedded systems. Efficiency is achieved by separating the error detection from the correction process and using different codes for each case. The proposed error control techniques are based on simple mathematical operations and are suitable for implementation in FPGA devices. It hence becomes possible to replace energy demanding retransmission operations, including the overheads they entail with energy efficient local error correction calculations. The techniques employed are shown to be more efficient than existing ones, according to criteria that are relevant to current applications. These techniques reduce the need for error recovery by retransmission and hence the environmental effect of data transmission in terms of energy consumption and electromagnetic emissions.