Near-optimal, single-synchronization-error-correcting code

A synchronization error is said to occur when either a bit which does not belong is detected in a channel between bits which were transmitted, or a bit which was transmitted is never detected at the output. A block code which corrects a single synchronization error per block is presented, and it is shown that this code has, at most, three bits more redundancy than that of an optimal code for this class of errors. The code has the beneficial property that it is possible to separate the information positions from the check positions, and an appropriate method of encoding is shown.