Forward Error Correction

SENTEL has developed a method that is being implemented as an electronic circuit in U.S. Navy digital television. Forward Error Correction (FEC) eliminates the harmful effects of nearby radars, improves reception in weak signal areas, and can be applied to all television receivers compliant with digital video broadcast standards.

This electronic circuit utilizes a decoding methodology developed by SENTEL that makes the popular FEC used widely in satellite communications and digital television even more robust.

The circuit doubles the error-correction power when it is added to a conventional receiver employing concatenation of Viterbi and Reed-Solomon decoding. Simulation has shown that with the addition of the circuit, the receiver can co-exist in an environment with twice the number of interfering pulsed radars a conventional receiver could handle. Because FEC doubles the capacity for correcting errors due to receiver and other ambient noise, it not only mitigates pulsed interference but also improves reception in weak signal areas.

This mitigation technique was developed in response to radar interference to a U.S. Navy satellite communication system employing conventional concatenated Viterbi and Reed Solomon FEC. The U.S. Navy is presently funding the addition of the circuit to an existing satellite receiver used for digital television reception.