Generalized subspace subcodes in the rank metric

Abstract

Rank-metric codes were studied by E. Gabidulin in 1985 after a brief introduction by Delsarte in 1978 as analogues of Reed-Solomon codes in the rank metric, but based on linearized polynomials. They have found applications in many areas, including linear network coding and space-time coding. They are also used in cryptography to reduce the size of the keys compared to Hamming metric codes at the same level of security. However, some families of rank-metric codes suffer from structural attacks due to the strong algebraic structure from which they are defined. It therefore becomes interesting to find new code families in order to address these questions in the landscape of rank-metric codes. In this paper, we provide a generalization of Subspace Subcodes in rank metric introduced by Gabidulin and Loidreau. We also characterize this family by giving an algorithm which allows one to obtain its generator and parity-check matrices based on the associated extended codes. We have also studied the specific case of Gabidulin codes whose underlying decoding algorithms are known. Bounds for the cardinalities of these codes, both in the general case and in the case of Gabidulin codes, are also provided.