Efficient decoding of interleaved linear block codes

The error correction capability of interleaved linear block codes is discussed. We assume that the channel behaves such that each row of a received array is either error free or corrupted by many symbol errors. Provided that the error vectors are linearly independent, we show that some interleaved block codes can correct asymptotically one erroneous row per redundant row, even without having reliability information from the channel output. An efficient decoding algorithm that achieves the error correction capability is presented. Using this algorithm we derive a random access scheme that has many similarities with the Aloha system. This paper represents a generalization of previous work (see IEEE Trans. Inform. Theory, vol.45, no.7, pp.2339-45, Nov. 1999). As it finally turned out, many ideas had already been discussed by Metzner and Kapturowski (see IEEE Trans. Inform. Theory, vol.36, no.4, pp.911-17, July 1990).