EE 387 December 7, 2012

Algebraic Error-Control Codes Handout #29

Sample Final Examination Problems
1. True/false questions. Briey justify each answer.
a. Every group of order 8 has a subgroup of order 4.
b. There is no way to dene to make {0, 1, 2, 3} with modulo 4 addition into a eld.
c. Every linear block code has at least one systematic generator matrix G = [ P | I ] .
d. Every systematic linear block code has exactly one systematic generator matrix.
e. The (n, k) cyclic code generated by g(x) = g
0
+ g
1
x + g
2
x
2
+ + g
nk
x
nk
and the (n, k)
cyclic code generated by the reciprocal polynomial g(x) = x
nk
g
1
0
g(x
1
) have the same
weight distribution.
f. Every (n, k) Reed-Solomon code can correct burst erasures of length n k.
g. Consider a t-error-correcting BCH code, and a received senseword with < t errors. The
Berlekamp-Massey algorithm at step k 2 + 1 will always have discrepancy
(k)
= 0.
2. Computations in GF(1009). Hint: 1009 is prime.
a. In GF(1009) nd 999
1012
. Hint: calculator not needed.
b. In GF(1009) nd 999
1
.
c. In GF(1009) how many primitive elements are there?
3. Computations in GF(2
6
). The nite eld GF(2
6
) can be dened by the primitive polynomial
p(x) = x
6
+ x
5
+ 1. Let be a primitive element of GF(2
6
) such that p() = 0.
a. Write Boolean equations or draw a logic circuit for the components (y
0
, y
1
, . . . , y
5
) of the
product y = a b, where b is the constant +
4
= (0, 1, 0, 0, 1, 0) .
b. Find the reciprocal in GF(2
6
) of 1 +
2
+
4
= (1, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0) .
c. Using the following incomplete table of powers of , nd the logarithm of (1, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1), that
is, the integer k such that
k
= (1, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1).
Selected powers of
i
in GF(2
6
)
i 0 8 16 24 32 40 48 56 64

i
100000 111001 010101 101101 010110 011100 111100 000101 010000
4. Repetition codes vs. Reed-Muller codes. Consider a binary communication channel with a low
signal-to-noise ratio and corresponding raw error rate 10
2
.
a. A very cautious engineer proposes to reduce the error rate by transmitting each bit 8 times.
A complete decoder for the (8,1) repetition code must make an arbitrary decision when the
received sequence has 4 ones and 4 zeroes. Suppose the decoder outputs a random bit in this
situation. Find the bit error rate after decoding.
b. A more knowledgeable engineer proposes a more ecient coding scheme, the Reed-Muller
code R(1, 5), which is a (32,6) binary linear block code with minimum distance 16. This code
has 62 codewords of weight 16 and two other codewords, the zero vector and the all ones
vector. Estimate the bit error rate after decoding. Assume a systematic encoder. State any
simplifying assumptions.

8
2

= 28

8
3

= 56

8
4

= 70

32
8

= 10518300

32
9

= 28048800

32
10

= 64512240
5. BCH code over GF(5). Let be a primitive element of GF(25) whose minimal polynomial over
GF(5) is p(x) = x
2
+ x + 2. Powers of are given in the following table.
i
i
0 [ 1 0 ] = 1
1 [ 0 1 ] = z
2 [ 3 4 ] = 3 + 4z
3 [ 2 4 ] = 2 + 4z
4 [ 2 3 ] = 2 + 3z
5 [ 4 4 ] = 4 + 4z
6 [ 2 0 ] = 2
7 [ 0 2 ] = 2z
8 [ 1 3 ] = 1 + 3z
9 [ 4 3 ] = 4 + 3z
10 [ 4 1 ] = 4 + z
11 [ 3 3 ] = 3 + 3z
12 [ 4 0 ] = 4
13 [ 0 4 ] = 4z
14 [ 2 1 ] = 2 + z
15 [ 3 1 ] = 3 + z
16 [ 3 2 ] = 3 + 2z
17 [ 1 1 ] = 1 + z
18 [ 3 0 ] = 3
19 [ 0 3 ] = 3z
20 [ 4 2 ] = 4 + 2z
21 [ 1 2 ] = 1 + 2z
22 [ 1 4 ] = 1 + 4z
23 [ 2 2 ] = 2 + 2z
u (u
2
+ u)

18

19

17

12

16

24

16

10

23

11

12
0

13

23

14

17

15

13

16

24

17

19

18

18

19

15

20

15

21

22

13

23

3
a. Let C
1
be the narrow-sense (24, 20) BCH code over GF(5) based on the primitive element .
Find the generator polynomial for C
1
. (You may leave your answer as a product of minimal
polynomial factors.)
b. What is the guaranteed minimum distance of the code C
1
? How many errors can C
1
correct?
c. Let C
2
be the narrow-sense (24, 20) BCH code over GF(25) based on the primitive element .
Find the generator polynomial for C
2
. (You may leave your answer as a product of minimal
polynomial factors.)
d. What is the guaranteed minimum distance of the code C
2
? How many errors can C
2
correct?
e. The partial syndromes of a senseword over GF(25) using code C
2
are S
1
= 0, S
2
=
16
,
S
3
=
15
, and S
4
=
8
. Find the error-locator polynomial (x).
f. (Bonus) Find the error locations and error magnitudes for the partial syndromes of part (e).
Page 2 of 4 EE 387, Autumn 2012
6. Comparing two cyclic codes. Let C
1
be the (15,5) binary linear block code formed by interleaving
ve codewords of the (3,1) repetition code. Let C
2
be the binary cyclic code whose codewords
are listed in the following table.
000000000000000 010000111011001 100001110110010 110001001101011
000011101100101 010011010111100 100010011010111 110010100001110
000100110101111 010100001110110 100101000011101 110101111000100
000111011001010 010111100010011 100110101111000 110110010100001
001001101011110 011001010000111 101000011101100 111000100110101
001010000111011 011010111100010 101011110001001 111011001010000
001101011110001 011101100101000 101100101000011 111100010011010
001110110010100 011110001001101 101111000100110 111111111111111
a. Describe the systematic generator matrix of C
1
.
b. Find the minimum distance of C
1
.
c. Find the weight enumerator A
1
(x) of C
1
.
d. What is the burst error correcting ability of C
1
?
e. Find the uncorrectable error probability for C
1
over a channel with raw error rate 10
4
.
f. Find the generator polynomial of C
2
.
g. What is the rate of C
2
?
h. What is the minimum distance of C
2
?
i. What is the burst error correcting ability of C
2
?
j. Find the uncorrectable error probability for C
2
over a channel with raw error rate 10
4
.
7. Decoder alphabet GF(2
12
). Let be a primitive element of GF(4096).
a. Let =
13
. What is the degree of the minimal polynomial over GF(2) of ?
b. Find the parameters n and k for the narrow-sense triple error correcting binary BCH code
based on powers of . Hint: 4095 = 315 13 = 65 63.
c. Find the number of check symbols nk used by a narrow-sense double error correcting binary
BCH code with blocklength n = 45. Hint: 4095 = 45 91 = 15 273.
8. BCH codes of blocklength 31. The design minimum distance of a t-error-correcting binary BCH
code is 2t + 1, where t is the number of factors of the generator polynomial
g(x) = lcm(f
1
(x), f
3
(x), . . . , f
2t1
(x)) .
The factors f
i
(x) of g(x) are minimal polynomials over GF(2) of
i
, where is primitive.
a. List the conjugacy classes of the powers of , represented by exponents. For example, the
conjugacy class of 1 =
0
is {0} and the conjugacy class of is {1, 2, 4, 8, 16}.
b. Find the number of check bits used by the narrow-sense binary primitive BCH codes of
blocklength 31 and design minimum distance 2t + 1 for t = 1, . . . , 6.
c. The generator polynomials of these BCH codes have zeroes other than , . . . ,
2t
. List the
minimum distances guaranteed by the BCH bound for these six codes.
Sample Final Examination Problems Page 3 of 4
9. Extended Reed-Solomon code. Let C be the linear block code over GF(4) with the following
parity-check matrix.
H =

1 1 1 1 0
0 1 1

.
(Operation tables for GF(4) are provided below.)
a. Find the rate and minimum distance of C.
b. Find a systematic generator matrix for C of the form G = [ P | I ].
c. Decode the received sequence r = [ 1 1 1 1 1 ].
d. Show that this code is not cyclic. Hint: consider G found in part (b).
GF(4) operation tables
+ 0 0
0 0 1
1 1 0
0 1
1 0
0 1
0 0 0 0 0
1 0 1
0 1
0 1

1
0
1 1


Page 4 of 4 EE 387, Autumn 2012