Low complexity erasure insertion in RS-coded SFH spread-spectrum communications with partial-band interference and Nakagami-m fading

In this paper we propose two novel low-complexity, low-delay erasure insertion schemes, namely, the output threshold test (OTT) and joint maximum output and ratio threshold Test (MO-RTT). The employment of the OTT and MO-RTT is beneficial in the context of the "errors-and-erasures" Reed-Solomon (RS) decoding in a slow frequency-hopping spread-spectrum (SFH/SS) system using M-ary frequency-shift keying (MFSK). The statistics of the erasure insertion related decision variables associated with the OTT, MO-RTT as well as with the ratio threshold test (RTT) are investigated, when the channel of each frequency-hopping (FH) slot is modeled as flat Nakagami-m fading. The transmitted signals also experience both additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) as well as partial-band Gaussian interference (PBGI). The properties of these erasure insertion schemes are investigated with the aid of their statistics. The performance of the proposed erasure insertion schemes and that of the erasure insertion scheme using the RTT is investigated and compared in the context of RS coded SFH/SS systems using MFSK. Furthermore, the performance of the RS coded SFH/SS systems is also compared both with and without side-information concerning the PBGI.