A method of analysis for interleaved Reed-Solomon coding with erasure decoding on burst error channels

A practical definition of an erasure is presented and leads to new expressions for correct and incorrect decoding probabilities for Reed-Solomon codes, assuming an incomplete decoder. The main benefit of this approach is that, in contrast with the usual approach, one is able to analytically demonstrate the performance improvement provided by errors-and-erasures decoding relative to errors-only decoding. A technique is presented for evaluating the performance of Reed-Solomon codes for both types of decoding on an interleaved burst error channel such as is seen in digital magnetic tape recording. Several illustrative examples are included