PARSUM: A Novel Error Detection Technique for Data Communication Systems

摘要

Data could be subjected to unpredictable changes due to interference on the data signal along the communication channel which may lead to error(s) on the data bits. A reliable system must have a mechanism to at least detect such error(s). There are several error detection techniques in existence, such as single and multi-parity, checksum, cyclic redundancy check. Each of these techniques, although simple, but has shortcomings. Checksum is one of the efficient techniques; however, it might not be able to detect a certain pattern of error. An improved technique called Parsum was proposed in this paper. Parsum combines simple parity with checksum technique to detect most of the errors which are invisible to other error detection techniques. The simple parity check that was used alongside the checksum technique enhances the error detection capacity of Parsum by enabling the data bits to be monitored in a row-wise fashion so that any change in the individual data block can be detected whenever the checksum technique fails to track such error. The performance of this technique, in terms of different patterns of error, was compared with that of simple parity and checksum error detection techniques in terms of number of hidden errors detected. The results indicated that Parsum is the most efficient error detection technique and no instances of errors, be it a single bit error, balanced and unbalanced burst errors, can be invisible to Parsum error detection technique.