The objective of this program is to initiate the development of a new and very powerful family of error correcting codes (i.e. algebraic geometry codes from Hermitian curves), by laying the groundwork for the implementation of one of the shorter codes from this family. Development of a near-term product for early commercialization is expected to benefit the longer term goal of more broadly exploiting this family of codes. The decoder structure is being defined in sufficient detail to allow pre-design of the decoder hardware in preparation for a Phase II hardware feasibility demonstration program. A computer simulation of the decoding algorithm is also being developed.
