H. Osthoff et al., SYSTEMATIC FEEDFORWARD CONVOLUTIONAL ENCODERS ARE BETTER THAN OTHER ENCODERS WITH AN M-ALGORITHM DECODER, IEEE transactions on information theory, 44(2), 1998, pp. 831-838
Citations number
22
Categorie Soggetti
Computer Science Information Systems","Engineering, Eletrical & Electronic","Computer Science Information Systems
Consider nonbacktracking convolutional decoders that keep a fixed numb
er of trellis survivors. It is shown that the error performance of the
se depends on the early part of the distance profile and on the number
of survivors kept, and not on the free distance or the details of the
code generators. Particularly, the encoder may be feed-forward system
atic without loss. Furthermore, this kind of encoder solves the correc
t path loss problem in reduced-search decoders. Other kinds do not. Th
erefore, with almost any other decoding method than the Viterbi algori
thm, systematic feed-forward encoders should be used. The conclusions
in this correspondence run counter to much accepted wisdom about convo
lutional codes.