A performance comparison of the binary quadratic residue codes with the 1/2-rate convolutional codes

The 1/2-rate binary quadratic residue (QR) codes, using binary phase-shift keyed (BPSK) modulation and hard decoding, are presented as an efficient system for reliable communication. Performance results of error correction are obtained both theoretically and by means of computer calculations for a number of binary QR codes. These results are compared with the commonly used 1/2-rate convolutional codes with constraint lengths from 3 to 7 for the hard-decision case. The binary QR codes of different lengths are shown to be equivalent in error-correction performance to some 1/2-rate convolutional codes, each of which has a constraint length K that corresponds to the error-control rate d/n and the minimum distance d of the QR codes. >