ASYMPTOTIC UPPER BOUNDS ON THE MINIMUM DISTANCE OF TRELLIS CODES.

A trellis code is a 'sliding window' method of encoding a binary data stream as a sequence of signal points. When a trellis code is used to encode data at the rate of k bits/channel symbol, each channel input depends not only on the most recent block of k bits to enter the encoder, but will also depend on a set of upsilon bits preceding this block. The upsilon bits determine the state of the encoder and the most recent block of k bits generates the channel symbol conditional on the encoder state. The performance of a trellis code depends on a suitably defined minimum distance property of that code. This paper obtained upper bounds on this minimum distance that are better than any previously known.

Duke Scholars

Author Robert Calderbank Computer Science