IMPROVED ERROR PROTECTION OF LINEARLY CODED DIGITAL SIGNALS

Abstract: A method and apparatus of providing improved protection of the more significant bits of a linearly coded and error protected digital signal makes recursive use of coded range information relating to the original signal which has been notionally divided into blocks, the coded range information relating to the maximum amplitude of the signal in each block. The coded range information can either be buried within the original error protection coding or can be sent separately. At the receiver, the recovery of the coded range information ascertains the maximum possible value of the largest digital sample within that block. Any transmission error affected bits and more significant positions in the sample than indicated by the coded range information are first corrected and then the other bits of the information are corrected using conventional error protection techniques.

Description: IMPROVED ERROR PROTECTION OF LINEARLY CODED DIGITAL SIGNALS The present invention relates to a method and appara¬ tus of providing improved protection of the more signifi¬ cant bits of a linearly coded and error protected digital signal (e.g. audio, vision, etc.) making recursive use of the coded range information. An object of the present invention is to improve the decoding performance of a digital receiver under noisy channel conditions with little or no increase in the transmission bit rate.. The present invention provides a method of error correcting a digital signal comprising receiving an error protected digital signal which includes error correction information and further information representing a parameter of the signal in each of a plurality of blocks of digital information present in the signal, deriving the further information, decoding error protection inform¬ ation from the signal, deriving the protected digital information and separating it into blocks, and subjecting each block of protected digital information to error correction in response to information derived from the further information and the error protection information. Features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following description of an embodiment thereof when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:- OMPI IIPPOO ' .- Figure 1 shows a table of range codes and corres¬ ponding bit positions to which each error protection code refers for one embodiment of the present invention; Figure 2 shows a table representing a range coding 5 scheme for 14-bit samples; and Figure 3 shows a block diagram of a part of a receiver according to the present invention. A fixed . number of digitally encoded sequentially placed samples forms a 'Range Code Block' . Each of 10 these blocks is assigned a 'Range Code 1 which signals the amplitude of the largest sample within that block. The 'Range Code' information can in most cases be buried within the original error protection coding of the digital samples without further increasing the transmission bit- 15 rate. However, if 'Range Code' is sent separately, there will be a slight increase in the transmission bit-rate. At the receiving end, the recovery of the 'Range Code' ascertains the maximum possible value of the largest digital sample within that *block' . Any transmission 20 errors affecting bits at more significant positions in the sample than indicated by the 'Range Code' value is first corrected. Digital samples are then decoded for error-correction using the coding scheme used for the samples. An error extension due to the decoding procedure 25 introducing new errors in the more significant positions in the sample is again suppressed using 'Range Code 1 information. Any error detected by the use of the range code information for the second time can, for example, be 30 dealt with by the substitution of the affected sample with a new one formed from the contributions of the nearby samples according to some pre-fixed algorithms. As an example, in the case of samples protected by single error-correcting Hamming code, the use of the •3-5 range code after Hamming decoding will detect some of the multiple errors occuring within the active part of OMPI the sample concerned, thus making significant improvement to the decoder performance. The significance of this technique is that a part of a digital sample (having higher information content) 5 is already decoded before even the application of the - actual error-protection decoding used for the sample. The result is that any subsequent error-correction decod¬ ing process for the sample will have to deal with a fewer number of information bits than was originally used 10 in the encoding, thus relating in an improvement of the decoding capacity. An extension of this technique can be used to pro¬ vide an error protection on a fixed number of bits per sample but the position of which can be varied according 15 to the 'Range Code'. Thus, during a period of weaker signal more of the least significant bits are protected than for a period of a stronger signal. The technique is illustrated in Figure 1 for the case of digital audio. In this illustration, the Range Coding Scheme shown in 20 Figure 2 has been assumed and a (n,6) code has been used to protect each audio sample for error correction. . Figure 1 shows the positions of the bits that have been protected by the coding for different Range Codes. Examples of application in digital audio 25 Statistically a band-limited pre-emphasised audio signal contains amplitudes much lower than the maximum value for a large proportion of time. In the case of digital''audio, fpr satellite broadcasting, the analogue signal is sampled at 32 KHz and digitised for 14 bits per 30 sample accuracy. 32 sequentially placed samples (Im.sec) * • form a 'Range Code Block' and a typical range coding scheme is shown in Figure 2. The digital audio samples are then coded for error protection (e.g. Hamming Code, BCH Code, etc.). The 'Range Code' used for the block can be 35 buried within the error protection bits using well known techniques. - A - ~ r On- reception, -the 'Range Code' information is extracted using the coding law of the audio samples and is used for fixing the value of appropriate number of most significant bits (msb) in the audio sample according to the procedure described above. The remaining bits in the audio samples are then decoded using the coding scheme originally used for the sample. Any decoding- error extending bit-errors in any position under the control of the 'Range Code 1 is again corrected from the knowledge of the 'Range Code' information. Example: suppose the maximum amplitude of any audio sample in a 'Range Code' block lies in the range jsj,000 111 111 1111 to fH 000 100 000 0000 resulting in a Range Code of 100 - and 10 most significant bits of each of the samples are protected for single error correction using (14,10) Hamming Code - ( tξj represents the sign bit). Upon recovery of the Range Code (100), the decoder immediately places 3 zeros at bit positions 10, 11 and 12 and the Hamming code now requires only to decode £s] bit and six other information bits at positions 4 through 9. However, if a wrong Hamming decoding indicates a 1 in any of the positions 10-12, they are discarded because of the available range code information. The scheme although described using examples of only sign-magnitude binary coding is equally applicable to other types of digital representation of samples (e.g 2's complement coding, etc.). The above error protected signal may be combined with a multiplexed analogue video signal. ■ ;■ Figure 3 shows a block diagram form one way in which receiving apparatus can be constructed in order to perform the operation described above. Before describing Figure 3 in detail it is thought advisable to relate the technique to a practical situation and _ the following description is on the basis that the digital information forms part of the C-MAC television signal. A receiver for such a signal includes clock re- 10 generation circuits and synchronisation circuits. These circuits are used to provide the basic timing information which is used to clock each block of information received by the receiving apparatus through the error correction and processing circuitry to be described. It is not 15 thought necessary to describe in detail the synchronisa¬ tion and clock regeneration techniques. Turning now to Figure 3 the received protected digital signal with error protection information and range code information is received and clocked into 20 circuitry 30 which extracts or decodes the range code for each block of digital samples. If the range code is sent separately from the error correction information this is a relatively straight forward process but if the range code information is contained as a sub-code within 25 the error Correction information it is necessary first of all to at least partly decode the error correction information in order to extract the range code information. This of course entails delaying the protected digital information while such decoding takes place. 0 Thereafter pre-correction of the protected digital h information is undertaken in a pre-correction circuit 31 in accordance with the range code value extracted from the range code information. This may be done using majority logic or known logic zeroes into the digital 5 samples using the range code information. ' .'The thus, pre-corrected digital information is then fed to a protection code processing circuit 32 where either all or the remaining un-decoded error correction information is finally decoded. It will be recalled that this error correction information is in the form of, for example, Hamming or DCH protection code. Additional,, information thus stripped of its error protection information is passed to a circuit 33 which checks the digital information and any samples that do not conform to the correct range as indicated by the range value derived from the range code are either part corrected or flagged as erroneous. The digital information including ' the flagged information is then fed to an error concealment circuit 34 where any samples which have been flagged potentially erroneous are concealed, for example, by interpolation from adjacent samples. The output digital samples are then fed for further processing for example in audio circuits of the television receiver.

Claims: CLAIMS : 1. A method of error correcting a digital signal comprising receiving an error protected digital signal which includes error correction information and further information representing a parameter of the signal in each of a plurality of blocks of digital information present in the signal, deriving the further information, decoding error protection information from the signal, deriving the protected digital information and separating it into blocks, and subjecting each block of protected digital information to error correction in response to information derived from the further information and the error protection information. 2. A method according to claim 1, wherein the protected digital information is subjected to a pre-correction operation using the further information, and the thus pre-corrected signal is error corrected using the error protection information. 3. A method according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the further information is received separately from the error protection information. 4- A method according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the further information is contained within the error protec¬ tion information and is derived from the received and at least partially decoded error protection information. 5 - A method according to any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein the further information is indicative of the largest amplitude signal in each block. 6. " = " Receiving apparatus for receiving an error protected digital signal which includes error correction information and further information representing a parameter of the signal in each of a plurality of blocks of digital information present in the signal, comprising means for separating protected digital information from error correction and further information, and means for sub¬ jecting the protected digital information to error correction in response to information derived from the further information and the error protection information. 7. Receiving apparatus according to claim 6, wherein said subjecting means comprises pre-correction means responsive to said further information for subjecting the protected digital information to a pre-correction operation, and correction means responsive to the error correction information for subjecting the output from the pre-correction means to error correction. S. Receiving apparatus according to claim 6 or 7 , and comprising error concealment means arranged to receive the output from the correction means and for producing error corrected and concealed digital information. 9- Receiving apparatus according to any one of claims 6,7 } or 8 and comprising means for receiving the further information separately from the error correction information. 10. Receiving apparatus according to any one of claims 6,7 or 8 and comprising means for deriving the further information from error correction information.

Inventors: AMIN MOHAMMAD BANIE, HARDING WILFRID BRENT, AMIN, MOHAMMAD, BANIE, HARDING, WILFRID, BRENT
Applicants: INDEP BROADCASTING AUTHORITY, INDEPENDENT BROADCASTING AUTHORITY
Application year: 1984
Main classification: H04L1
IPC codes: G11B20, H03M13, H04B14, H04L1