Abstract
This paper presents an exact analysis of the performance of binary cyclic codes in communication systems. Previous expressions for the performance of this type of codes have used simplified assumptions which limited its use to few communication systems. This paper significantly extend previous work by providing a quite more general expressions for the performance of cyclic codes applicable to most communication channels and systems. Applications are demonstrated for type-I hybrid ARQ systems by deriving equations for the packet error probability and throughput for frequency-hop Spread spectrum multiple-access (FHSS-MA) networks. Numerical results show that the approximation by using the old techniques can result in an error in the order of 14%.