Error Control Coding in Optical Fiber Communication Systems: An Overview

In sending data from one point to another, such as transferring data between various components of a computer system, due to the existence of electromagnetic waves and other issues such as noise and attenuation, information may be changed in the middle of the track. Therefore, it is critical for receiver to ensure the accuracy of the information. For this reason, error control coding plays an important role in communication channels. This is specially true for optical communication systems as one of the most important mediums used for data transmission. In this paper, we present methods of error control coding in optical fiber communication systems. For this purpose, we introduce two categories of error correction codes. The most important types of error control coding techniques in optical fiber communications are: Reed-Solomon (RS), Bose-Chaudhuri-Hocquenghem (BCH), Product, and Low Density Parity Check (LDPC). Furthermore, an in-depth analysis for these error correction codes has been performed.