Optimal Allocation of Symbols to Chipping Codes and

Error Control Codes to Achieve Low Bit Error Rates

Eric Bechhoefer
Goodrich Fuels and Utility Systems
Vergennes, VT 05491
802-877-4875
Eric.Bechhoefer@Goodrich.com

Radoslaw R. Zakrzewski
Goodrich Fuels and Utility Systems
Vergennes, VT 05491
802-877-4757
Radek.Zakrzewski@Goodrich.com

Abstract—Wire has been a necessary evil1 for aviation
platform. Wire is heavy, difficult to trouble-shoot when it
ages, and time consuming to install. Recent technological
advancement in wireless communication and the world wide
acceptance of the industrial, scientific and medical (ISM)
band allows the Aviation community to rethink how
information within the aircraft is integrated.
a binary phase shift keying (BPSK) and the use of BCH
codes. We estimate the Pareto optimal bound of the
allocation of chipping codes (N chips per symbol) and a N
bit per K symbol BCH code using soft decision method for
various SNR with a (128 bit) word error rate (WER) of less
than 10-6. A link budget example is then provided using this
process and coding gain.

While there are number of wireless devices in the TABLE OF CONTENTS

commercial market which operate in the ISM band, the
unique requirements of aviation does not easily facility the
transition to wireless: a wireless sensor must have the same
integrity and latency as a wired sensor. Wireless standards
such as ZigBee hold much promise, but will likely not meet
the requirement for integrity and latency. Both integrity and
latency are a function of system symbol error rate.
Wireless protocols have a number of methodologies for
reducing symbol error rate: increased power, process gain
from modulation and signal processing technique. The ISM
band gives strict limits on radiated power. Additionally, a
truly wireless sensor would be power limited due to battery
or energy harvesting technology. This leaves techniques
such as chipping codes (DSSS Direct Sequence Spread
Spectrum) and block/convolution coding (classes of error
control codes, such as a Bose, Ray-Chaudhuri,
Hocquenghem (BCH) codes) to reduce symbol error rate.
Both these techniques decrease symbol error rate through bit
redundancy. Thus one can trade off between symbol rate
and bit rate by using these techniques. Bit rate is the
redundancy associated chipping/error control codes. For
example a 16 chip DSSS sends 16 bits for each symbol,
where a 4, 7 block code sends 7 bits for 4 symbols.
This paper determines the optimal use allocation of symbols
to bits for a given SNR and allowed bit error rate. This is
important in the design of a radio architecture that attempts
to have latency and integrity comparable to traditionally
wired sensors. We assume a Gaussian white noise channel,
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Updated Oct, 27, 2005
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1. INTRODUCTION ............................................... 1140
2. MODELING RADIO PERFORMANCE................ 1131
3. PROCESSES AND CODING GAIN ...................... 1132
4. DESIGN OF A RADIO SYSTEM ......................... 1135
5. CONCLUSIONS ................................................. 1136
REFERENCES....................................................... 1136
BIOGRAPHY ........................................................ 1136
1. INTRODUCTION
Wireless commercial products have been successful in
replacing many wired applications. Wireless standards such
as 802.11 are ubiquitous in many organizations in
connecting computers to servers and the internet and is
probably one of the most successfully application of wireless
in the ISM band. The advent of 802.15.4, ZigBee, Wireless
USB and Bluetooth promises to usher in a number of
innovative application for wireless sensing.
However, none the existing protocols can adequately
address the requirements for an aviation system. The
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) certification
practices for avionics address undetected errors per flight
hour, and assume no latency. The customer (e.g. OEM or
operator) requirements address system performance, which
implies latency. For example, a wireless cockpit display
might have a 4 Hz update requirement. This implies that the
system architecture latency is no greater than a quarter
second.
How to do this in an Electro Magnetic Interference (EMI)
environment is a non-trivial task. The commercial radio
products that are available have a number of shortcomings in
this regard. First, the named protocols are generally
―polite‖. They use carrier sensed multiple access (CSMA)
to control collisions. This introduces a level of uncertainty
in the system architecture.
Further, the word or packet error rate (WER) of the
commercial system may not be high enough for a given
application. Certainly any user of WiFi is assured to a high
level that information conveyed is accurate. However, this
accuracy is achieved by retransmission of corrupted packets.
Again, this protocol paradigm reduces the determinacy of a
system.
Ideally, one would build a system with a small probability of
error. Additionally, the system would have a deterministic
latency: the receiver has a ―contract‖ with transmitter.
Regardless of the other user of the channel or interference,
the message will be sent at the appropriate time. Given the
constraint on power and bandwidth, this becomes an
optimization problem. The objective is to minimize the
number of bits (equivalent to power) where the constraint is
to achieve a lower probability of error for a given
environmental condition. In this study, we will define the
constrained WER to have a probability of error of less than
10-6, where the word is 128 bits. Environmental conditions
will be:
Transmitter power
The transmitter frequency,
The open field range to the receiver,
The gain of the antennas,
Power of other in-band interference,
Open field range to the interference,
and the receiver sensitivity.
As noted, we will assume that the radio uses BPSK
modulation.
2. MODELING RADIO PERFORMANCE
Given a BPSK modulation technique and assuming an
additive white Gaussian noise channel, it can be shown (ref
[1]) that the radio’s Bit Error Rate is:
P Q 2E b N o (1)
where Eb is the energy per bit, No is the energy of the noise
and Q is the Q-function. The Q-function is one minus the
cumulative distribution function of the standardized normal
random variable. The signal to noise ratio (SNR) is then:
E b No 10SNR /10 (2)
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The required SNR for a desired P is than:
2
SNR 10log10 norminv(1 - P) 2
(3)
Where norminv is the inverse of the normal cumulative
distribution function. Thus, for any P, there is a SNR that is
a minimum required SNR.
Spread Spectrum Signals
A spread spectrum signal, when used for the transmission of
digital information is characterized by their bandwidth W
being greater than the information rate R in bits/s. The
redundancy of the spread spectrum signal can overcome
interferers in the RF channels.
In the design of a spread spectrum signal, a pseudo-random
(PN) code is used to make the signal appear as random noise
and difficult to demodulated by receivers other than the
intended ones. Conversely, the intended receiver which uses
the PN-code to decode the signal, has the effect of spreading
interference from other users. When multiple users share a
common channel and each user has a unique, orthogonal PN
codes for the simultaneous transmission of information, it is
called code division multiple access (CDMA). When the
PN code is used to conjunction with the PSK modulation to
shift the phase of the PSK signal, then the resulting
modulated signal is called a direct sequence spread
spectrum (DSSS).
Given the information rate R, and the available bandwidth of
W, the bandwidth expansion factor, Be = W/R. In practice,
the ratio is integer, which is the number of chips per
information bit. The process gain of the DSSS system is:
PG 10log10 B (4)
For a DSSS radio such as ZigBee® with 8 chips per bit, the
PG is 9 dB, which s WCDMA system used 256 chips per
bit, with a PG of 24 dB, and GPS, which uses 1023 chips
per bit has a PG of 30 dB.
BCH Error Correcting
Codes BCH codes are a special case of cyclic codes. Cyclic
codes can be implemented using a high-speed shift register
based encoder and decoder. This has practical attraction in
that they are relatively simple to implement in firmware.
While BCH codes are not maximum distance separable, they
are arguable one of the most powerful block codes. BCH
codes have frequent applications in military and commercial
satellites. They are considered the best of the binary block
codes because of their simplicity in implementation and
error correcting/detecting performance (ref [2]).
A BCH code of length n that can correct t errors is
constructed by:
 1. Find a primitive nth root of unity in a Galios
Field GF(qm), where m is minimal
2. Select ( -1) = 2t consecutive power of , starting
with b for some non negative integer b.
3. Let g(x) be the least common multiple of the
minimal polynomial for the selected power of
with respect to GF(q).
For a more detailed discussion, see Ref 2, page 180. The
resulting codes may be constructed with the parameters:
n 2m 1
n k mt (5)
dmin 2t 1
For example, with m = 3, n = 7, k = 4, t = 1, and dmin = 3.
A note on the weight of the code, and the minimum distance
of the code, dmin. The weight of a code word is the number
of nonzero coordinated in the code word. The distance
between two code words is the number of coordinates in
which the two blocks differ (e.g. the Hamming distance).
Thus, the minimum distance of a code is the minimum
Hamming distance between all distinct pair of code word.
For any BCH code, a transmitted code word is guaranteed to
differ in a least dmin coordinated from any other code word.
From this, one can conclude that a code with a minimum
distance dmin can detect all error of weight less than or equal
to dmin - 1.
However, a given code can detect a large number of error of
weight w greater than dmin . This means that dmin provides a
limit on the weight for which one can detect all error
patterns.
The code redundancy, Rc, is n/k, which is equivalent to the
bandwidth expansion. The reciprocal of the code
redundancy is the code rate R. The coding gain is then:
CG R cdmin (6)
3. PROCESSES AND CODING GAIN
Both process gain from DSSS and coding gain from an error
correcting code can be used to improve the WER of a radio.
When these two techniques are used together, the radio BER
rate is then:
P Q 2E b N o * B * Rc dmin (7)
Equation 7 is misleading in that it implies that the error
function is continuous. This is not the case because of the
way BCH codes work. Consider an m = 6, n= 63, k =24
(63,24) code with a t = 7 (that is, this code can correct up to
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7 errors on the 63 transmitted bit). This means that if the
SNR of the signal at the receiver is such that the probability
of 7 or less errors are transmitted in 63 trails is small, the
message has zero errors. Thus, the probability of error of the
BCH code is tied to the one minus the cumulative binomial
distribution for 7 or less errors in 63 tails, where each trail
has a probability of failure equal to the BER.
Alternatively, consider the case where there are 8 bit errors
in the 63 symbols. The probability of error for correctly
decoding the message is close to 1. Through simulation, it
was found that with 8 errors, the WER was 0.984, and with
9 errors, the WER was 0.992. Clearly, this discontinuity is
not captured in equation 7.
Further, the estimate of dmin from equation 5 was found to be
a rather loose bound. Ref [1] gives a tighter lower bound
with is asymptotic at n as:
dmin
n 2A 1 A (8)
where the parameter A is related to the code rate through:
Rc 1 Alog2 A 1 A log2 1 A ,
(10)
0 A 12
An exact value for dmin for each code would allow an exact
CG for each BCH code. This in turn will allow the engineer
to design a radio to achieve any desired WER.
Binomial Probability Density Function for Minimum
Distance
In sending a sequence of n bits, one can assume that each bit
consists of an identical and independent trail. By definition,
there are two outcomes. This suggests that one can treat a
stream of bit data as a binomial experiment. Formally, a
binomial experiment is one in which:
1. A experiment consists of n identical trails
2. Each trail results in one of two outcomes, either
success or failure
3. The probability of success on a strain is equal to p
and is constant form trail to trail. The probability
of failure is equal to q = (1-p).
4. The trails are independent
5. The random variable of interest is Y, the number of
successes observed during the n trails.
In our (63,24) BCH code example, we are interested in the
probability of there being 8, (t+1), or more success, where
we define a success as a bit error. Here, the random variable
Y is the number of bit errors. For some given SNR, from
equation (1) will give the probability of a bit error. From
the bit error, p, the probability of 8 or more bit errors is one
minus the binomial cumulative distribution function: for each k length code. Referring back to the (63,7) code.
On average the 63 bit sequence would be sent 18.3 times.
t 1 t 1 n y
The bandwidth expansion is 9 (Rc = 0.111). Each packet of
EY 1 py 1 p (11) 63 bits requires (from equation 13) a probability of error
y 0 y less than 5.469 x 10-8. From equation (3), each bit requires
a SNR of 11.49 dB. However because the code can correct
where t is again the number of errors that can be corrected in up to 15 errors, one would require 16 or more errors in 63
the code. bits for a packet error. Using equation (11) with WER =
5.469 x 10-8 one derives a p (BER) of 0.0498. Again, using
Equation 11 gives the relationship between a BER and WER equation 3, one finds the required SNR of 1.32 db. The CG
where the word length is k symbols. If one assigned a WER is then found to be: 12.04dB – 1.32dB = 10.71dB. We can
of some small value, say 10-6, then searched for a p that compare this to the PG with B = 9, which is 9.54, and one
satisfied the WER, using equation 3 one could find the sees that the BCH code is more efficient by 1.2 dB.
required SNR for p. Finally, given the SNR required to
achieve the WER without coding, we have an exact measure Algorithm to find CG:
of the coding gain. The solution to p is not closed form, but 1. Calculate BER for a given WER and word length:
is easily calculated using optimization algorithm, such as a equation (12)
Newton-Raphson method, to minimize a function such as: 2. Calculate the power required to achieve BER
(PSNR) using equation (3)
2 3. Select t, n, and k BCH code
t 1 t 1 y n y
x 1 p 1 p WER (11) 4. Derive the average number of messages required
y 0 y for the work length, and use equation (13) to get
the probability of error for each n length packet.
The optimization algorithm will force x to zero as p 5. Using equation (11), find the coded BER
approaches the correct BER. This function is raised to the 6. Equation (3) gives the required SNR (CGSNR).
power so that it has a continuous derivative, with is required Calculate the CG by subtracting CGSNR from
by Newton-Raphson. PSNR.
7. Calculate dmin and from equation (5) and the
Normalized Word Error Rate realized dmin from equation (6)

In order to evaluate both PG and CG performance, a Table 1. (63,K) BCH code Example.
benchmark is needed. For example, in the BCH code where
m = 5, n = 63, there are 15 possible codes where k ranges
from 57 to 7 bits. The benchmark could be the CG in which Equivalent BCH
128 information bits is sent. Under this scenario, a k = 57 BCH DSSS Coding dmin Calculated
code would have to be sent 2.25 times, while the k = 7 code Code Process Gain (2t-1) dmin
would be sent 18.3 times. While it is evident that the CG for Gain (dB) (dB)
the (63,7) code is greater than the CG of a (63,57) code, (63,57) 0.43 3.19 1 3.52
because it must be sent 8 times as often, the realized gain (63,51) 0.92 4.40 3 5.44
will not be as great. (63,45) 1.46 5.44 5 7.61
(63,39) 2.08 6.22 7 10.05
Let one consider that a word is 128 bits of information. We (63,36) 2.43 6.89 9 12.06
with the system performance to have a WER of 10 -6. If we
(63,30) 3.22 7.45 11 15.64
sent a sequence of 128 bits, for a given BER the WER
(63,24) 4.19 7.94 13 20.83
would be:
(63,18) 5.44 9.25 19 32.38
128 (63,16) 5.95 9.64 21 37.94
WER 1 1 BER (12)
(63,10) 7.99 10.32 25 65.00
(63,7) 9.54 10.98 29 98.82
Taking the inverse operation, we have:

BER 1 10 log10 1 WER 128 (13) From this discussion, some interesting observations are
made. As noted, CG = Rcdmin, which allows an explicit
For a WER of 10-6, the BER would be 7.8125 x 10-9. We calculation for dmin (see table 1). Additionally, the worst-
can now calculate the base energy required to send this word case performance of the code can detect 2*t-1, or 29 errors
in a BPSK modulation using equation (3), or 12.04 dB SNR. in this example. This bound is used to calculate the
In a similar manner we can derive the equivalent error rate probability of not detecting an error (using equation 11). In
this example the BER is 0.0498; the probability of not
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detecting an error is 1.0103 x 10-14. This information is
valuable in the certification process, which measures
performance in undetected errors.

Equivalent DSSS is the PG given the bandwidth expansion

of the code (e.g. 10*log10(N/K)). In the case of the (63,K)
codes, the codin gain is always greater than the PG. The
calculated dmin is the CG/Rc. One sees in general that the
realized minimum distance is greater than given by 2t-1.

Example: BCH CG for m=3 to 9

Using the algorithm to normalized WER, the process gain
for m = 4 (n = 15 code length) to m = 9 (n = 511 length
code) are calculated (figure 1). The DSSS process gain is
plotted against the BCH codes as reference. Note that for
larger Rc, the process gain for DSSS is not as efficient.
Figure 2 Required SNR for BCH Codes

Figure 1 Coding Gain for BCH Codes

In general, as the code length increases, the coding gain
increase (increase in efficiency). Finally, observe that not all
codes are good codes – in particular, some of the 511 codes
performances are rather poor (4 dB down in CG).

The calculated performance is dependent on some lower

bound of SNR being available at the receiver. As noted, the
BCH codes are discrete in their performance. They work
perfectly as long as there is less than t bit errors present in
the packet. The required SNR is plotted in figure 2.

The realization that DSSS PG performance is continuous,

and the BCH CG is discrete suggests a concatenated code
type of architecture. The BCH codes have powerful error
correction and detection capabilities if the required SNR is
met. In the design of a system, when it is anticipated that
additional RNS is required, a DSSS PN could be Figure 3 BCH, DSSS Concatenated Radio
―concatenated‖ onto the BCH code in order to achieve the
required SNR. Such radio architecture would look like
figure 3 (Blue Boxes are part of the Transmitter, Green
Boxes are part of the Reciever).

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 4. DESIGN OF A RADIO SYSTEM
In a software controlled radio one would have to option of
changing BCH code, PN sequence, and modulation rate for
a given application. The design of such a system would
require knowledge of the anticipated range, in band
interference, multipath effect, antenna design, power output
and receiver sensitivity.
Example: Design of a Wireless Accelerometer
Consider a Health and Usage Monitoring System (HUMS)
which is dependent on a number of drive train
accelerometers to measured drive train vibration on a
helicopter. Such a system might have 15 to 18 drive train
accelerometers. The work in process for installation, the
weight, the parts count in terms of harnesses and drawings
all add system cost. A wireless accelerometer would make
HUMS more attractive to operators precisely because the
reduce weight, installation, parts count, etc.
Take for example an accelerometer located at the tail rotor
intermediate gear box. This location is at the end of the tail
boom, a distance of 12.2m to the equipment bay on a utility
helicopter.
We will assume a bandwidth of 5 MHz. From this, we can
calculate the noise power as:
N kTB
23
1.38x10 J K 290K 2 x106 s 1 In a retrofit situation of an aircraft the operation can realize
(14)
2 x10 11 mW
107dBm
This is the theoretical receiver sensitivity. Give losses in the
receiver itself, one can anticipate a noise figure (NF) of
15dB. This gives a Receiver Noise Floor (Pr) of -92 dB.
We will assume use of the 2.4 GHz ISM band, which give a
wavelength of:
c/ f
3x108 m s 2400MHz (15)
0.125m
The isotropic path loss is will be modified for obstruction:
n (511,k).
2 d0
Lp 2
d
4 d (16)
72.9dB
where d0 is reference distance of 1m, and n is an empirically
derived path gain exponent, set to 3 (ref 4.). It is assumed
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that some type of conformal, broad side radiating antenna is
used, with a gain (GA) of 2.1 dB. From on aircraft testing it
was found that fading (F) was Rayleigh distributed with 19
dB loss. The transmitter is lower power (Pt), 0.001 W or
0bBm. Given this: Signal Excess = Pr + GA + GA + Lp +
Pt + F , or 4.3
A modest microprocessor will be used, such as an (127,8)
BCH code is used with a CG of 12.5 dB, but a required SNR
of -0.45. In this system we have 4.75 dB of signal excess,
with an information bit rate of 125Kb/s (assuming a
bandwidth expansion of 127/8 = 15.875, and 2Mb/s bits).
However, one should assume the presence of some in band
interference, such as WiFi. The interferer will be allowed
no closer than 3 m to the receiver, and 0dBm output. This
system, because it is closer, adds 18.2 dBm, resulting in a
SNR of -13.9, or 13.45dB signal deficit. In this case, a 32
bit chipping code, concatenated to the BCH, will give 1.6
dB of signal excess (a rather tight margin). The information
rate will now be (2Mb/s) / (32*127/8) = 4Kb/s, but with
significant error detection capability.
Realistically, this bandwidth could not support a wireless
accelerometer at this range, or with this level of interference.
The system engineer would recommend a wireless remote
data concentrator (RDC), perhaps located at the tail takeoff,
to gather and relay accelerometer data from the tail section.
Example: Design of a Wireless Cockpit Display
large weight savings by replacing the existing analog cockpit
instrument display with a digital system. In this application,
a centralized RDC interfaces with aircraft sensors, then
sends the data to a wireless glass cockpit. The cockpit
update rate is specified to have a 10 Hz update rate, and
monitors 98 signals. To simplify design, the data will use a
32 bit word (16 bits of address, 16 bits of data). This
specifies 32Kb/s data bandwidth.
It is assumed that both the RDC and cockpit display are
power, so the maximum power allowed (1 W, 30dBm) shall
be used. The bandwidth of the radio is 22 MHz, or Pr = -
85.5 dB (from equation 14). The range from the RDC to
display is 3 meters, or a path loss (Lp) of -48.6 dB (from
equation 16). Similar fading loss and antenna gains are used.
The radio has the capability of sending 11 Mb/s. Since this
system has power, a more capable microprocessor is used,
such as a ColdFire MCF5485. This allows the use of a
In the example, one would want the greatest possible signal
excess to ensure low latency. Essentially, one wants the
greatest possible gain for a given bandwidth expansion
(figure 4).
 improves relative to BCH codes as the bandwidth expansion
increases.

REFERENCES

[1] Proakis, John, G., Digital Communications, WCB

Figure 4 BCH and DSSS Gain vs. Bandwidth Expansion
The (511,40) BCH code gives 13.3 dB coding gain and
requires -1.38 dB or SNR. The allowed bandwidth
expansion is (11Mb/s)/(32Kb/s), approximately 340. Given
the 511/40 = 12.8, the chipping code of the concatenated
DSSS code can be of length 26, a process gain of 14.1 dB.
The link budget for this model is now: 85.5 dBm + 2.1*2
dB - 48.6dB +13.3dB +14.1dB -19dB + 30 dBm = 66.2 dB,
or 67.6 dB signal excess for reliable reception. This system
will provide very good performance and would be certifiable
to level B (note that level A would not allow the system to
be disrupted by EMI levels as high as 200v/M. A level
system might be achieve by having a system changed
frequency bands, say from 2.4 GHz to 5 GHz, when
presented with high levels of in band EMI).
McGraw-Hill, Boston, 1995.
[2] Wicker, Stephen, B., Error Control Systems, Prentice-
Hall, Inc., Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, 1995, Page
197-199
[3] Bensky, Alan, Short-range Wireless Communications,
Elsevier Inc., Burlington, MA page 11-34
[4] Wackerly, D., Mendenhall, W., Scheaffer, R.,
Mathematical Statistics with Applications, Buxbury Press,
Belmont, 1996
BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Bechhoefer is a retired Naval aviator with a M.S. in
Operation Research and a Ph.D. in General Engineering,
with a focus on Statistics and Optimization. Dr. Bechhoefer
has worked at Goodrich Aerospace since 2000 on a number
of health and usage monitoring system (HUMS) related
projects. Dr. Bechhoefer holds over 8 patents and has
published over 20 HUMS related papers.

5. CONCLUSIONS

In is readily apparent that in order to provide a wireless

systems in aircraft, the information performance must be as
good as that provided by wire. Only then will the operator
reap the benefits of lower weight, reduced maintenance and
reduce work in process. In wire, it is assumed that the
latency of information is deterministic and low. Wireless
systems must provide similar determinism and latency,
which means that the probability of a word error must be
small.

By evaluating the gain achieve by from DSSS and BCH

coding, the system engineer is afforded the best
combinations of techniques to achieve performance
specification.

In this paper we presented a methodology to calculate the

coding gain of BCH codes and a process to evaluate the
BCH against the process gain of DSSS. Additionally we
found an explicit value for dmin. It was found that some 511
codes are not efficient, and that performance of DSSS

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