An efficient table-driven decoder for one-half rate convolutional codes

Error control schemes are becoming increasingly important as the needs increase for very high rates of data transmission over inherently noisy channels (e.g. satellite and spread-spectrum communication). Forward error-correction is one means of improving channel performance, but at high data transmission rates very efficient decoder implementations are required. In this paper, we describe an efficient table-driven decoder for 1/2-rate nonsystematic convolutional codes. Various decoder implementation and performance issues are discussed.