Order Statistics on Minimal Euclidean Distance for Blind Linear Block Code Identification

This article deals with the blind detection and identification of error correcting codes. More precisely, we aim at estimating the code length from a noisy bits stream in a non-cooperative context (e.g. Electronic Warfare). In this context, an eavesdropper may intercept a communication. To retrieve the sent information, one can consider identifying the channel code parameters. The method proposed here relies on a statistical analysis of a Euclidean distance matrix. It allows to estimate the code length. We address a process based on soft bits information with no a priori on the encoder used. Finally, we compare our method with a well known algorithm based on Gauss-Jordan elimination.