A Singleton Bound for Generalized Ferrers Diagram Rank Metric Codes

In this paper, we will employ the technique used in the proof of classical Singleton bound to derive upper bounds for rank metric codes and Ferrers diagram rank metric codes. These upper bounds yield the rank distance Singleton bound and an upper bound presented by Etzion and Silberstein respectively. Also we introduce generalized Ferrers diagram rank metric code which is a Ferrers diagram rank metric code where the underlying rank metric code is not necessarily linear. A new Singleton bound for generalized Ferrers diagram rank metric code is obtained using our technique.