Bit by bit row/column interleaving of block accumulate codes

A novel bit by bit row/column interleaver (BBRCI) design technique is proposed to significantly increase the minimum Hamming distance (MHD) of block accumulate codes (BACs), making them suitable for optical applications. The proposed BBRCI design method employs a separate row/column interleaver (RCI) for the transmission of each bit position of the outer block code. The numbers of rows of these individual RCIs are properly selected to increase the MHD of the resulting BAC and to reduce the frame size. It is demonstrated that BACs constructed with a BBRCI can be designed to have significantly higher MHD than similar BACs constructed with uniform interleavers (UI) and S type interleavers. Simulations show example BACs constructed with BBRCIs that perform significantly better than those BACs constructed with a UI.