Ass.Prof.Dr.

Thamer Information Theory 4th Class in Communications

BINARY CYCLIC CODES

Binary Cyclic codes was first studied by Prange in 1957.

Cyclic codes form an important subclass of linear codes. These

codes are attractive for two reasons: first, encoding and
syndrome computation can be implemented easily by employing
shift registers with feedback connections (or linear sequential
circuits); and second, because they have considerable inherent
algebraic structure, it is possible to find various practical methods
for decoding them.
If the components of an n-tuple v = (v0, v1. . . , vn-1) are cyclically
shifted one place to the right, we obtain another n-tuple,

Which is called a cyclic shift of v. If the components of v are

cyclically shifted i places to the right, the resultant n-tuple would
be

Clearly, cyclically shifting v i places to the right is equivalent to

cyclically shifting vn-i places to the left.

Definition . An (n, k) linear code C is called a cyclic code if every

cyclic shift of a code vector in C is also a code vector in C.

The (7, 4) linear code given in Table 1 is a cyclic code. Cyclic

codes form an important subclass of the linear codes and they

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 Ass.Prof.Dr.Thamer Information Theory 4th Class in Communications

possess many algebraic properties that simplify the encoding and

the decoding implementations.

To develop the algebraic properties of a cyclic code, we treat the

components of a code vector v = (v0, v 1 , . . . , vn-1) as the
coefficients of a polynomial as follows:

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 Ass.Prof.Dr.Thamer Information Theory 4th Class in Communications

Thus, each code vector corresponds to a polynomial of degree n

— 1 or less. If vn-1 ≠ 0, the degree of v(X) is n — 1; if v„_ 1 =0,
the degree of v(X) is less than n — 1. The correspondence
between the vector v and the polynomial v(X) is one-to-one. We
shall call v(X) the code polynomial of v. Hereafter, we use the
terms "code vector" and "code polynomial" interchangeably. The
code polynomial that corresponds to the code vector v(1) is

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 Ass.Prof.Dr.Thamer Information Theory 4th Class in Communications

It follows that the nonzero code polynomial of minimum degree

in an (n, k) cyclic code C is of the following form:

…(1)
Every code polynomial v(X) in an (n, k) cyclic code can be
expressed in the following form:

If the coefficients of u(X), u0, u1 . . ., uk-1 are the k information

digits to be encoded, v(X) is the corresponding code polynomial.
Hence, the encoding can be achieved by multiplying the message
u(X) by g(X). Therefore, an (n,k) cyclic code is completely
specified by its nonzero code polynomial of minimum degree,
g(X), given by (1). The polynomial g(X) is called the generator
polynomial of the code. The degree of g(X) is equal to the
number of parity-check digits of the code.

The generator polynomial of the (7, 4) cyclic code given in Table

1 is g(X) = 1 + X + X3. We see that each code polynomial is a
multiple of g(X).

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 Ass.Prof.Dr.Thamer Information Theory 4th Class in Communications

If g(X) is a polynomial of degree n — k and is a factor of Xn + 1,

then g(X) generates an (n, k) cyclic code.

Example 1
The polynomial X 7 + 1 can be factored as follows:

There are two factors of degree 3; each generates a (7, 4) cyclic

code. The (7, 4) cyclic code given by Table 1 is generated by g(X)
= 1 + X + X3. This code has minimum distance 3 and it is a
single-error-correcting code. Notice that the code is not in sys-
tematic form. Each code polynomial is the product of a message
polynomial of degree 3 or less and the generator polynomial g(X)
= 1 + X + X3.
For example, let u = ( 1 0 1 0 ) be the message to be encoded.
The corresponding message polynomial is u(X) = 1 + X2.
Multiplying u(X) by g(X) results in the following code polynomial:

H.W: Construct Binary Cyclic codes of (4,7 ) using

g(X)=1+X2+X3?

Given the generator polynomials g(X) of an (n, k) cyclic code, the

code can be put into systematic form (i.e., the rightmost k digits
of each code vector are the unaltered information digits and the
leftmost n — k digits are parity-check digits).
Suppose that the message to be encoded is u = (u0 ,u1 ,…,uk-1 )
The corresponding message polynomial is
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 Ass.Prof.Dr.Thamer Information Theory 4th Class in Communications

2
Where a(X) and b(X) are the quotient and the remainder,
respectively. Since the degree of g(X) is n — k, the degree of
b(X) must be n — k — 1 or less, that is,

Rearranging (2), we obtain the following polynomial of degree n

— 1 or less:

…(3)
This polynomial is a multiple of the generator polynomial g(X) and
therefore it is a code polynomial of the cyclic code generated by
g(X). Writing out b(X) + Xn-k u(X), we have

….(4)
Which corresponds to the code vector

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 Ass.Prof.Dr.Thamer Information Theory 4th Class in Communications

We see that the code vector consists of k unaltered information

digits (u0, uu . . ., uk-1) followed by n — k parity-check digits. The
n — k parity-check digits are simply the coefficients of the
remainder resulting from dividing the message polynomial Xn-k
u(X) by the generator polynomial g(X). The process above yields
an (n, k) cyclic code in systematic form.

In summary, encoding in systematic form consists of three steps:

Example 2: Consider the (7, 4) cyclic code generated by g(X) =

1 + X + X3. Let u(X) = 1 + X3 be the message to be encoded.
Dividing X3 u(X) = X3 + X6 by g(X),

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 Ass.Prof.Dr.Thamer Information Theory 4th Class in Communications

We obtain the remainder b(X) = X + X2. Thus, the code

polynomial is v(X) = b(X) + X3u(X) = X + X2 + X3 + X6 and the
corresponding code vector is v = (0 1 1 1 0 0 1), where the four
rightmost digits are the information digits. The 16 code vectors in
systematic form are listed in Table 2.

GENERATOR AND PARITY CHECK MATRICE 0F CYCLIC

CODES
To construct the 4 by 7 generator generator matrix G , we start
with four polynomials represented by g(X) and three cyclic shifted
versions of it as shown by:-

g(X) = 1 + X + X3 (zero shift)

X ● g(X) = X + X2 + X4 (1 – cyclic shift ).

X2● g(X) = X2 + X3 + X5 (2 – cyclic shift).
X3● g(X) = X3 + X4 + X6 (3 – cyclic shift).

If the coefficients of these polynomials are used as elements of

the rows of a 4 by 7 matrix, we got:-

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 Ass.Prof.Dr.Thamer Information Theory 4th Class in Communications

If the first row is added to the third row and the sum of the first
two rows is added to the fourth row, we obtain the following
matrix:

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 Ass.Prof.Dr.Thamer Information Theory 4th Class in Communications

Which is in systematic form. This matrix generates the same code

as G.

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Ass.Prof.Dr.Thamer Information Theory 4th Class in Communications

….(5)

…(6)

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 Ass.Prof.Dr.Thamer Information Theory 4th Class in Communications

EXAMPLE 4 : Construct Parity Check Matrix H of example 2?

We simply find the party polynomial H(X) as follow:

Also X5 ● h(X-1) = X + X3 + X4 + X5 ,
And X6 ● h(X-1) = X2 + X4 + X5 + X6 .

Then using the coefficients of these three equations as the

elements of the rows of the 3 by 7 parity check matrix, we got

1 0 1 1 1 0 0
’
H =0 1 0 1 1 1 0
0 0 1 0 1 1 1

Here H’ is not in systematic form therefore we must put it into a

systematic by add 3rd row with the 1st row to obtain :-

1 0 0 1 0 1 1
H=0 1 0 1 1 1 0
0 0 1 0 1 1 1

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