Combinatorial error detection in linear encoders

Linear error correction is widely implemented in millions of telecommunication devices to cope with unreliable or noisy communication channels. A common error in linear encoders is when some bits that are originally one in the generator matrix get erased and become zero - usually due to a soft error becoming a hard error or simply a physical impact on the device. The need to deal with this phenomenon has been recognized in the literature, although to the best of our knowledge no one has ever tried to diagnose erasure-type faults in an encoder. In this paper we focus on the situation when the linear encoder hardware unit becomes faulty and propose a novel combinatorial fault detection scheme based on group testing to diagnose its state with great efficiency in a quick manner. Furthermore we touch upon some solutions to compensate for at both the sender and the receiver side.