A shortened Viterbi decoding algorithm for terminated rate- convolutional codes with hard decisions (Corresp.)

An algorithm for maximum likelihood decoding of terminated rate-1/ convolutional codes with hard decisions is presented which is based upon, but is simpler than, the Viterbi algorithm. The algorithm makes use of an algebraic description of convolutional codes introduced by Massey et al. For reasonable values of the probability of error, the algorithm is shown to produce substantial savings in decoding complexity compared with the Viterbi algorithm.