A scheme for the synchronization of variable length codes

A synchronization scheme is necessary when variable length codes are used in the presence of errors. In this paper we present a scheme for synchronizing the data stream without allowing slippage. We achieve this by inserting a number of distinct keywords, each consisting of a synchronizing sequence and an explicit or implicit cyclic count, into the data at intervals. We present decoding algorithms for this scheme and prove their effectiveness given limits on the maximum number of errors per cycle of keywords.