Analysis and simulation of a syndrome decoder for a constraint length rate R binary convolutional code

摘要

An analysis and a computerized simulation were carried out for a syndrome decoder in order to determine the minimum amount of hardware required. The principle of syndrome decoding for R=1/2 convolutional codes is explained, and the differences between Viterbi and syndrome decoding are described with regard to path registers and metric calculations. The selection of a particular k=5 code is justified. Three codes are compared by computerized simulation, and a code is selected because the number of associated path registers is only nine and the metric table contains 1817 entries. This code has a good error correcting capability, and the amount of hardware of the syndrome decoder is significantly smaller than that of the classical Viterbi decoder. (Author)