ECE/Math 641 - Fall 2017

Nigel Boston

Contact Information

Telephone: 265-3817, 263-4753.

E-mail: boston@math.wisc.edu

Homepage

Office Hours: Mondays, 12:00-1:30 (3619 Engineering Hall) and Thursdays, 10:30-12:00 (303 Van Vleck) ; or by appointment.

Text

Other Useful References

My favorite text is Blahut's ``Algebraic Codes for Data Transmission". Another reference book is ``Fundamentals of Error Correcting Codes" by Huffman and Pless. The classical reference was ``The Theory of Error-Correcting Codes" by MacWilliams and Sloane. A comprehensive reference is ``Handbook of Coding Theory" by Pless and Huffman. More recent developments are beautifully covered in ``Modern Coding Theory" by Richardson and Urbanke.

Computational Help

• MAGMA Coding Theory
• GUAVA

Interesting Links

• The Hat Puzzle
• Prize Problem in Coding Theory
• Code Tables
• Coding Theory Conferences

Course Overview

Coding theory is the efficient use of redundancy to ensure the correction of errors in data transmission. It is a marvelous application of clever uses of algebra and combinatorics to problems of practical importance (satellite imagery, scratched CD's). We will follow Barg's excellent course notes - covering topics such as linear codes, Reed-Solomon codes, list decoding, cyclic codes, ensembles of random codes, iterative decoding, belief propagation, and LDPC codes, culminating in describing capacity - achieving codes for the binary erasure channel, which answers a basic question raised by Shannon 70 years ago.

Sections

• Main Lecture: MWF, 11:00-11:50, 3444 Engineering Hall.

Grading

There will be 5 homeworks, worth a total of 40%, one midterm worth 20%, and a final worth 40%.

Homeworks