System for identifying localized burst errors

1. A system for detecting one or more localized burst errors in a receiving message comprised of a plurality of codewords, the system comprising:

a trellis code decoder for decoding a receiving message with a plurality of codewords and calculating one or more cumulative metrics of a maximum likelihood path and one or more alternative paths from the receiving message;

an error detection code (EDC) decoder for detecting existence of one or more errors in the decoded receiving message received for the trellis decoder; and

a localized burst error detector activated by the EDC decoder upon detecting the existence of one or more errors in the decoded receiving message to identify at least one corrupted codeword among the plurality of the codewords using the one or more cumulative metrics of a maximum likelihood path and the one or more alternative paths,

wherein the system requests the re-transmission of the corrupted codeword.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the localized burst error detector comprises a module configured to calculate one or more absolute differences between cumulative metrics of the maximum likelihood path and the one or more alternative paths.

3. The system of claim 2 , wherein the one or more absolute differences between the cumulative metrics of the maximum likelihood path and the one or more alternative paths are stored in a memory module.

4. The system of claim 3 , wherein the localized burst error detector retrieves a predetermined number of the one or more smallest absolute differences from the memory module and forms a list {tilde over (L)}.

5. The system of claim 4 , wherein the localized burst error detector computes a total number of elements in the list {tilde over (L)} corresponding to all the codewords.

6. The system of claim 5 , wherein the localized burst error detector identifies a codeword that has the most elements in the list {tilde over (L)} and regards it as the codeword with at least one localized burst error.

7. The system of claim 5 , wherein the localized burst error detector identifies two or more codewords that have the most elements in the list {tilde over (L)} and regards them as the codewords with at least one localized burst error.

8. The system of claim 4 , wherein the localized burst error detector determines one or more localized burst errors in a plurality of codewords by calculating a value Q (Q=SNR −Δ j ) for each element in the list {tilde over (L)}, where SNR is the signal to noise ratio of a wireless communication channel and Δ j is the absolute difference between cumulative metrics of the maximum likelihood path of the message and an alternative path of the message at time instance j.

9. The system of claim 8 , wherein the value Q is proportional to the probability of errors.

10. The system of claim 8 , wherein the localized burst error detector sums all the Qs of a codeword.

11. The system of claim 8 , wherein the localized burst error detector identifies the codeword with the highest Q and regards it as the codeword with at least one localized burst error.

12. A system for detecting one or more localized burst errors in a decoded receiving message comprised of a plurality of codewords, the system comprising:

a trellis code decoder for decoding at least one receiving message with a plurality of codewords and for calculating one or more cumulative metrics of a maximum likelihood path and one or more alternative paths from the receiving message;

an error detection code (EDC) decoder for detecting existence of one or more errors in the decoded receiving message received from the trellis decoder; and

a localized burst error detector activated by the EDC decoder upon detecting the existence of one or more errors in the decoded receiving message to identify at least one corrupted codeword among the plurality of the codewords by using a module configured to calculate one or more absolute differences between cumulative metrics of the maximum likelihood path and the one or more alternative paths, to retrieve a predetermined number of the one or more smallest absolute differences from the memory module, and to form a list {tilde over (L)},

wherein the system requests the re-transmission of the corrupted codeword.

13. The system of claim 12 , wherein the localized burst error detector computes a total number of elements in the list {tilde over (L)} corresponding to all the codewords.

14. The system of claim 13 , wherein the localized burst error detector identifies a codeword that has the most elements in the list {tilde over (L)} and regards it as the codeword with at least one localized burst error.

15. The system of claim 14 , wherein the localized burst error detector identifies two or more codewords that have the most elements in the list {tilde over (L)} and regards them as the codewords with at least one localized burst error.

16. The system of claim 13 , wherein the localized burst error detector determines one or more localized burst errors in a plurality of codewords by calculating a value Q (Q=SNR −Δ j ) for each element in the list {tilde over (L)}, where SNR is the signal to noise ratio of a wireless communication channel and Δ j is the absolute difference between cumulative metrics of the maximum likelihood path of the message and an alternative path of the message at time instance j.

17. The system of claim 16 , wherein the value Q is proportional to the probability of errors.

18. The system of claim 16 , wherein the localized burst error detector sums all the Qs of a codeword.

19. The system of claim 16 , wherein the localized burst error detector identifies the codeword with the highest Q and regards it as the codeword with at least one localized burst error.