Economic Considerations for Edac Coding on Naval HF Communication Channels

摘要

Naval HF communication systems are not as reliable as desired. Error detection and correction (EDAC) coding can be used in many cases to improve the probability of correct reception of a message while incurring additional cost of equipment and lower data rate or higher bandwidth per message. The measure of reliability or cost of message errors is difficult in the actual communication environment and the value of EDAC coding should not be measured solely by its resultant decrease in average bit error rate. The cost of proposed EDAC coding/decoding equipment and associated maintenance and training costs should be weighed against values resulting from decreased (or less variable) time delays between message transmission and acceptance by the recipient (including possible repeats) and lower probability of undetected errors in the accepted message. Other factors which may contribute positively or negatively to the value of EDAC implementation are flexibilty (ability to use more than one EDAC scheme if conditions warrant), effects of equipment/operator malfunctions, etc. Measuring such factors in dollars is necessary if a representative cost comparison is to be made between various reliability-improvements schemes. A pilot project is recommended to provide performance comparisons between EDAC coding schemes in actual Naval communications environments. (Author)