This project is funded under the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, which is designed to provide an opportunity for small business, particularly the small high technology firm, to participate in NSF research. Phase I of the SBIR program serves as a filter to select promising proposals and determine if the firm can do high quality research. Phase II is the principal research project. Phase III is the conversion of the NSF-funded research into commercial applications and technological innovation supported by follow-on private venture capital or other non-federal financing. This is a Phase I project to conduct research in a new error correction coding technique based on an extension of majority logic coding. The code has an algebraic structure that permits a hybrid code design that employs cyclic coding in a natural fashion withn the basic code. The resulting hybrid code has increased random error correction capability while retaining the simple iterative scheme, wherin the number of errors is reduced significantly with each iteration. The research will extend binary projection code theory to non-binary elements (symbols) and investigate the performance of these non-binary projection codes. Erasure decoding of both binary and nonbinary projection codes will also be investigated. A successful effort could lead to a relatively inexpensive codec capable of efficient operation at high code rates and very high bit rates. Numerous commercial and government applications exist, including broadband ISDN, packet data switching and satellite and meteor burst transmission systems.
