Reduced-state representations for trellis codes using constellation symmetry

This paper presents a symmetry-based technique for trellis-code state-diagram reduction that has more general applicability than the quasi-regularity technique of Rouanne et al. and Zehavi et al. for trellis codes using standard constellations and labelings. For a 2/sup /spl nu/x/-state trellis code, the new technique reduces the 2/sup 2/spl nu/x/ state diagram to 2/sup /spl nu/x+/spl nu/q/-state diagram where 0/spl les//spl nu//sub q//spl les//spl nu//sub x/. The particular value of /spl nu//sub q/ depends on the constellation labeling and the convolutional encoder. For standard rate-k/(k+1) set-partitioned trellis codes, /spl nu//sub q/=0, and the overall number of states is the same with the new technique as with quasi-regularity. For codes that are not quasi-regular (and thus not amenable to the quasi-regularity technique), the new technique often provides some improvement (when /spl nu//sub q/