Error correction coding for a meteor burst channel

The time-varying signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) model for the meteor burst (MB) channel is reviewed. Bounds on the capacity of the channel are derived for both a constant SNR model and a time-varying SNR model. These bounds show that there is a significant throughput improvement to be gained by using forward error correction. Two methods are given for determining the performance of an MB system when packets of information are encoded with an (n,k) linear block code. Numerical results are generated using high-rate BCH codes, and it is found that about 25% improvement over uncoded systems can be obtained by choosing the code rate properly. In addition, some suggestions for techniques that provide further improvement are given