A Construction of Maximum Distance Profile Convolutional Codes With Small Alphabet Sizes

Convolutional codes are essential in a wide range of practical applications due to their efficient non-algebraic decoding algorithms. In this paper, we first propose a new family of matrices over finite fields by combining Vandermonde and Moore matrices. Using favourable properties of the matrices in this new family enables us to construct a new family of convolutional codes with memory 1 and maximum distance profile. It is notable that the alphabet sizes of this new family of convolutional codes with maximum distance profile can be kept significantly smaller than those in the literature. Keeping the code rate to a constant, the alphabet size is roughly the square root of the previously best-known value.