Burst-error-correcting algorithm for Reed-Solomon codes and its performance over a bursty channel

Various communication and storage systems are likely corrupted by bursts of noise. These bursts may be long in duration, resulting in a significant degradation for the system performance. Reed-Solomon (RS) codes are proven to be very effective in correcting burst errors. According to the Singleton bound, the maximum length of burst errors that can be corrected by an (n, k) RS code is (n-k)/2 symbols. However, it turns out that, if correlation between erroneous symbols within bursts is considered and well used, the variables for burst locations will be decreased and, accordingly, decoding capability may be enhanced with increased length of correctable bursts. As such, we propose a new burst-error-correcting algorithm. It is shown that, for (n, k) RS codes, this algorithm can correct continuous burst errors with length that approaches to n-k symbols with fairly low miscorrection probability, achieving a good performance over long-burst channels.