On the Error Coefficients of Asymptotic Frame Error Rate Optimal Binary Linear Codes

A binary linear code is called asymptotic frame error rate (AFER)-optimal if it achieves the maximum possible value of the minimum distance while having the smallest value of the corresponding error coefficient. Over the additive white Gaussian noise channel and under maximum-likelihood decoding, AFER-optimal codes attain the best possible asymptotic frame error rate at high signal-to-noise ratio. In this paper, we present several bounds on the smallest error coefficients of binary linear codes and give several constructions of AFER-optimal binary linear codes. Many examples confirm that our bounds are sharp on numerous occasions. In addition, we give two families of AFER-optimal codes that respectively attain the proposed bounds with equality.