Performance of errors-and-erasures decoded Reed-Solomon codes over frequency-selective Rayleigh fading channels using M-ary orthogonal signaling

Abstract

The performance of Reed-Solomon (RS) codes is investigated over frequency-selective Rayleigh fading channels using M-ary orthogonal signaling schemes. 'Errors-and-erasures' decoding (E/sup 2/D) is considered, where erasures are judged based on Viterbi's (1982) ratio threshold test (RTT) and on the basis of the output likelihood ratio threshold test (LRT/sup 2/). The LRT/sup 2/ technique is compared with Viterbi's RTT, and both of these are compared to receivers using 'error-correction only' decoding (ECOD) over frequency-selective Rayleigh-fading channels, numerical results show that upon using E/sup 2/D, RS codes of a given code rate can achieve higher coding gain, than that without erasure information, and that the LRT/sup 2/ technique outperforms the RTT, provided that both schemes are operated at the optimum decision thresholds.