Reduced-redundancy product codes for burst error correction

In a typical burst error correction application of a product code of n_v×n_h arrays, one uses an n_h, n_h-r_h] code C_h that detects corrupted rows, and an n_v, n_v-r_v] code C_v that is applied to the columns while regarding the detected corrupted rows as erasures. Although this conventional product code scheme offers very good error protection, it contains excessive redundancy, due to the fact that the code C_h provides the code C_v with information on many error patterns that exceed the correction capability of C_v. A coding scheme is proposed in which this excess redundancy is eliminated, resulting in significant savings in the overall redundancy compared to the conventional case, while offering the same error protection. The redundancy of the proposed scheme is n_hr_v+r_h(lnr_v+O(1))+r_v , where the parameters r_h and r_v are close in value to their counterparts in the conventional case, which has redundancy n_hr_v+n_vr_h-r_h r_v. In particular, when the codes C_h and C _v have the same rate and r_h≪n_h, the redundancy of the proposed scheme is close to one-half of that of the conventional product code counterpart. Variants of the scheme are presented for channels that are mostly bursty, and for channels with a combination of random errors and burst errors