An efficient method to calculate the free distance of convolutional codes
Ranjan Bose · International Conference on Electronics, Hardware, Wireless and Optical Communications · 2007
We present a novel method to calculate the free distance (dfree) of a linear Trellis code (Convolutional code). The proposed method may be used to obtain the dfree of a given Convolutional code without having to compare all paths in the Trellis with the all-zero path. Using the proposed method, the dfree of a Convolutional code may be obtained merely by looking at the Trellis diagram of the code. The proposed method is based on the modified state diagram approach of finding dfree. Through several examples, we demonstrate that the proposed method may be used to calculate the dfree of large Convolutional codes with almost zero online effort.