Constrained list Viterbi algorithm and its application in image transmission via noisy channels

The Viterbi algorithm (VA) is a maximum likelihood (ML) decoder for convolutionally encoded data. A more advanced decoding method is list Viterbi algorithm (LVA) which produces the list of the L best output sequences over a certain block length in decoding a terminated convolutional code. The constrained Viterbi algorithm (C-VA) is a method proposed to makes full use of the information of the known correctly decoded bits. In this paper, advantages of these two methods are completely exploited together in image transmission. Simulation results show that the decoding complexity can be reduced dramatically and the performance can be improved greatly by using constrained list Viterbi algorithm (CLVA).