Transparent self-healing communication networks via diversity coding

The authors present an error control based approach, called diversity coding, to provide nearly instantaneous self-healing digital communication networks. This is achieved by constructing an error-correcting code across logically independent channels and by treating link failures within the framework of an erasure channel model. Diversity coding is more efficient than the existing approaches to self-healing communication networks since it is nearly instantaneous, is transparent to the end user, minimizes the required extra capacity, and does not need rerouting, resynchronization, or a backward channel. It is applicable to both circuit-switched and packet-switched networks, and to a wide variety of network topologies. Diversity coding can be extended to provide protection from short-duration environmental disruptions such as multipath fading in radio networks, polarization dispersion in fiber-optic networks, or, in conjunction with the existing error detection schemes, it can be extended to forward error correction for random and burst errors.