On low complexity stack decoding of convolutional codes

This article presents techniques for improving the distribution of the number of stack entries, for stack sequential decoding over a hard quantized channel, with emphasis on high rate codes. It is shown that, for a class of high rate b/(b+1) codes, a table-based true high rate approach can be easily implemented for obtaining a decoding advantage over the punctured approach. Modified algorithms, which significantly improve the distribution of the number of stack entries and decoding time, are proposed for rate 1/N codes and high rate b/(b+1) codes.