Error Control

Classification of data
communication errors
1. Single bit only one bit within a given
data string is on error
Affect only one character within
message
2. Multiple bit when two or more
nonconsecutive bits within a given data
string are in error
- affect one or more characters within a
message
3. Burst when two or more consecutive
bits within a given data string are in

Classification of data
communication errors

Classification of data
communication errors

 Error performance is the rate in

which errors occur, which can be
described as either an expected or
an empirical value.
Probability of error (P[e]) - the
theoretical (mathematical)
expectation of the rate at which
errors will occur
Bit error rate (BER) - the actual
historical record of a systems error
performance

General Categories of Error

Control
1. Error detection
. is the process of monitoring data
transmission and determining when
errors have occurred
2. Error correction
. is the process of determining when
errors have occurred and correcting
them

Error Detection
is the process of monitoring data
transmission and determining when
errors have occurred
Its purpose is not to prevent errors
from occurring but to prevent
undetected errors from occurring.

Error Detection Techniques

1. Redundancy checking
-

Duplicating each data unit for the

purpose of detecting errors is a form of
error detection called redundancy
Adding bits for the sole purpose of
detecting errors is called redundancy
checking

Basic Types of Redundancy

Checks

1.1 Vertical redundancy checking (VRC)

- the simplest error-detection scheme and is
generally referred to as character parity or
simply parity.
- With character parity, each character has its
own error-detection bit called the parity bit.
- With character parity, a single parity bit is
added to each character to force the total
number of logic 1s in the character, including
the parity bit, to be either an odd number
(odd parity) or an even number (even parity).

Basic Types of Redundancy

Checks

1.1 Vertical redundancy checking

(VRC)
- The primary advantage of parity is its
simplicity.
- The disadvantage is that when an
even number of bits are received in
error, the parity checker will not
detect them because when the logic
condition of an even number of bits
is changed, the parity of the
character remains the same.

Example
Determine the odd and even parity
bits for the ASCII character R.

Solution
The hex code for the ASCII character R is 52,
which is P1010010 in binary, where P
designates the parity bit.
For odd parity, the parity bit is a 0 because 52
hex contains three logic 1s, which is an odd
number. Therefore, the odd-parity bit sequence
for the ASCII character R is 01010010.
For even parity, the parity bit is 1, making the
total number of logic 1s in the eight-bit
sequence four, which is an even number.
Therefore, the even-parity bit sequence for the
ASCII character R is 11010010.

Other forms of Parity

a. Marking parity parity bit is
always a 1
b. No parity the parity bit is not set
or checked
c. Ignored parity - the parity bit is
always a 0 bit if it is ignored

Basic Types of Redundancy

Checks
1.2 Checksum
- is another relatively simple form of redundancy
error checking where each character has a
numerical value assigned to it
- The characters within a message are combined
together to produce an error-checking
character (checksum), which can be as simple
as the arithmetic sum of the numerical values
of all the characters in the message.
- The checksum is appended to the end of the
message.

Basic Types of Redundancy

Checks
1.3 Longitudinal redundancy checking (LRC)
- is a redundancy error detection scheme that
uses parity to determine if a transmission error
has occurred within a message and is therefore
sometimes called message parity.
- With LRC, each bit position has a parity bit.
- Essentially, LRC is the result of XORing the
character codes that make up the message,
whereas VRC is the XORing of the bits within a
single character.
- With LRC, even parity is generally used, whereas
with VRC, odd parity is generally used.

Example
Determine the VRCs and LRC for the
following ASCII-encoded message:
THE CAT. Use odd parity for the VRCs
and even parity for the LRC.

Solution

The LRC is 00101111 binary (2F hex), which is the character

/ in ASCII. Therefore, after the LRCcharacter is appended to
the message, it would read THE CAT/.

Basic Types of Redundancy

Checks

1.4 Cyclic redundancy checking

(CRC)
- Probably the most reliable
redundancy checking technique for
error detection is a convolutional
coding scheme called cyclic
redundancy checking
- With CRC, approximately 99.999% of
all transmission errors are detected.

Basic Types of Redundancy

Checks
1.4 Cyclic redundancy checking
(CRC)
-Mathematically, CRC can be
expressed as

Basic Types of Redundancy

Checks
1.4 Cyclic redundancy checking
(CRC)
The generator polynomial for CRC-16 is

CRC-16 generating circuit

Example
Determine the block check sequence
(BCS) for the following data and CRC
generating polynomials:

Error Correction Techniques

1. Retransmission
-

as the name implies, is when a receive

station requests the transmit station to
resend a message (or a portion of a
message) when the message is
received in error.
Because the receive terminal
automatically calls for a retransmission
of the entire message, retransmission
is often called ARQ, which is an old twoway radio term that means automatic
repeat request or automatic

Error Correction Techniques

2. Forward Error Correction
- is the only error-correction scheme that
actually detects and corrects transmission
errors when they are received without
requiring a retransmission.
- With FEC, redundant bits are added to the
message before transmission. When an
error is detected, the redundant bits are
used to determine which bit is in error.
Correcting the bit is a simple matter of
complementing it.

Error Correction Techniques

2. Forward Error Correction
Hamming code (Richard W.
Hamming)
- an error-correcting code used for
correcting transmission errors in
synchronous data streams
- Hamming bits(sometimes called error
bits) are inserted into a character at
random locations. The combination
of the data bits and the Hamming
bits is called the Hamming code.

Error Correction Techniques

2. Forward Error Correction
Hamming code

Data unit comprised of m character bits and n Hamming bits

Error Correction Techniques

2. Forward Error Correction
Hamming code
Number of Hamming Bits

Examples
1. How many Hamming bits would be
added to a data block containing
128 bits?
2. Calculate the Hamming distance to
detect and correct 3 single-bit errors
that occurred during transmission.
Also compute for the number of
Hamming bits for a 23 bit data
string.

Example
For a 12-bit data string of
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 the error.

Classifications of Channel
Codes
1. Block codes
- In block codes one of the M=2k messages, each
representing a binary sequence of length k, called
the information sequence, is mapped to a binary
sequence of length n, called the codeword, where
n>k

2. Convolutional codes
- are described in terms of finite-state machines. In
these codes, at each time instance i, k
information bits enter the encoder, causing n
binary symbols generated at the encoder output
and changing the state of the encoder from i1 to
i
.

Process of error detection in block

coding

Example: Let us assume that k=2

and n=3.

Assume the sender encodes the dataword 01 as

011 and sends it to the receiver. Consider the
following cases:
1. The receiver receives 011. It is a valid codeword.
The receiver extracts the dataword 01from it.
2. The codeword is corrupted during transmission,
and 111 is received (the leftmost bit is
corrupted). This is not a valid codeword and is
discarded.
3. The codeword is corrupted during transmission,
and 000 is received (the right two bits are
corrupted). This is a valid codeword. The receiver
incorrectly extracts the dataword 00. Two
corrupted bits have made the error undetectable.

Structure of encoder and decoder in

error correction

Example
Assume the dataword is 01. The sender
consults the table (or uses an algorithm) to
create the codeword 01011. The codeword is
corrupted during transmission, and 01001 is
received (error in the second bit from the right)

1. Comparing the received codeword with the

first codeword in the table (01001 versus
00000), the receiver decides that the first
codeword is not the one that was sent because
there are two different bits.
2. By the same reasoning, the original codeword
cannot be the third or fourth one in the table.
3. The original codeword must be the second one
in the table because this is the only one that
differs from the received codeword by 1 bit.
The receiver replaces 01001 with 01011 and
consults the table to find the dataword 01.

Linear Block Code

is a code in which the exclusive OR
(addition modulo-2) of two valid
codewords creates another valid
codeword.

Example
Check if the two codes we defined in
the previous two tables belong to the
class of linear block codes.

Cyclic Codes
Cyclic codes are special linear block
codes with one extra property. In a
cyclic code, if a codeword is cyclically
shifted (rotated), the result is another
codeword.

Convolutional Codes
creates additional bits from the data,
but the encoded output is a function
of not only the current data bits but
also previously occurring data bits

Convolutional Codes

Convolutional encoding uses a shift register with

exclusive-OR gates to create the output

Convolutional Codes

A convolutional encoder using recursion

One form of turbo encoding