Some new upper bounds on the covering radius of binary linear codes

A Griesmer-like upper bound on the covering radius, R, is given. To the author's knowledge this is the only upper bound which explicitly depends on all three parameters n, k, and d. An upper bound on R for cyclic codes is then given which depends on the generator polynomial of the cyclic code and which, in many cases, leads to an improvement of the previous bound. An upper bound on the irreducible generator polynomial cyclic codes is also given. New interpretations and applications of the so-called Norse bounds and necessary and sufficient conditions to attain one of these bounds are provided. Generalizations of most of the results for codes over GF(q) are outlined