A new upper bound on the first-event error probability for maximum-likelihood decoding of fixed binary convolutional codes (Corresp.)

An upper bound on the first-event error probability for maximum-likelihood decoding of fixed binary convolutional codes on the binary symmetric channel is derived. The bound is evaluated for rate codes, and comparisons are made with simulations and with the bounds of Viterbi, Van de Meeberg, and Post. In particular, the new bound is significantly better than Van de Meeberg\´s bound for rates above .