DCS.402 - Error Protection
This module was part of the syllabus of the MSc programmes in "DSP & Intelligent Systems" and "Mobile Broadband Communications". It was taught in block-mode, that is, lectures and practical sessions lasted for 5 to 6 hours per day and were delivered daily for a period of 15 days. DCS.402 was laid down in 2013 but some elements of forward error correction were incorporated to SCC.414 - " Advanced Communication Systems", which was introduced in 2014.
The subject material was divided into four parts:
- Fundamental concepts and basic principles: Types of errors, Hamming distance, Hamming weight, code rate, bit interleaving, discrete and continuous random variables, probability distributions, discrete and continuous channel models, modular arithmetic and Galois fields, polynomial representation of codes, code concatenation.
- Linear block codes: Coding and decoding of repetition codes, single parity check codes, array codes and Hamming codes; matrix representation of Hamming coding and decoding; error probability analysis of simple codes; systematic and non-systematic cyclic codes; logic circuits for cyclic encoding and decoding; trellis decoding of block codes; low-density parity check codes.
- Convolutional codes: Bayes’ theorem, observations, likelihood, prior probability and posterior probability; the notion and usefulness of memory-less channels; recursive/non-recursive, systematic/non-systematic convolutional codes; code representations using tree, state and trellis diagrams; the Viterbi algorithm using soft and hard decisions; trellis-coded modulation; turbo codes and iterative decoding.
- Error control at the Network/Application Layers: Cyclic redundancy check (CRC) codes for error detection, automatic repeat request (ARQ) methods, fountain coding and network coding.
I was the module convenor of DCS.402 in 2012-2013 and I shared it with Dr Leila Musavian. Module statistics for this module are not available because of the very small number of registered students.