Length-constrained MAP decoding revisited

We consider the problem of length-constrained maximum a posteriori (MAP) decoding of a Markov sequence that is variable length encoded and transmitted over a binary symmetric channel. We convert this problem into one of maximum-weight k-link path in a weighted directed acyclic graph. The induced graph optimization problem can be solved by a fast parameterized search algorithm that finds either the optimal solution with high probability or a good approximate solution otherwise. The proposed algorithm has lower complexity and superior performance than previous heuristic algorithms.