Blind identification of code word length for non-binary error-correcting codes in noisy transmission

In cognitive radio context, the parameters of coding schemes are unknown at the receiver. The design of an intelligent receiver is then essential to blindly identify these parameters from the received data. The blind identification of code word length has already been extensively studied in the case of binary error-correcting codes. Here, we are interested in non-binary codes where a noisy transmission environment is considered. To deal with the blind identification problem of code word length, we propose a technique based on the Gauss-Jordan elimination in GF(q) (Galois field), with q=2m, where m is the number of bits per symbol. This proposed technique is based on the information provided by the arithmetic mean of the number of zeros in each column of these matrices. The robustness of our technique is studied for different code parameters and over different Galois fields.