Pilot signals improve the performance of a Reed-Solomon errors and erasures decoder in Rayleigh fading channels

Errors and erasures decoding has the capability to improve the performance of a Reed-Solomon decoder if each error location is correctly identified, or "flagged", and is considered as an erasure. However, the erasure flagging must be extremely reliable. In this paper, we present a new way to flag erasures, based on the side information provided by pilot signals. We derive a Bayesian method for optimum character erasure flagging, using both the received data signals and the channel estimates provided by pilot signals, and we present a simpler method which flags erasures on a modulation symbol basis. Our simulation results demonstrate that the method results in significant transmit power savings compared to errors-only decoding. Index Terms - Encoding, fading channels, modulation/demodulation, Reed-Solomon codes.