Iterative decoding in SFH communications with Reed-Solomon codes and channel estimation

The performance of packet-level iterative decoding is examined for a slow-frequency-hop spread-spectrum system using interleaved Reed-Solomon code words and per-dwell differential encoding. It is shown that the use of per-dwell soft-output detection in conjunction with successive-erasures decoding results in better performance in the presence of partial-band interference than previously considered iterative decoding techniques for the same packet format. Several alternatives are considered for soft-output symbol detection and the estimator of the per-dwell signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio.