Generalized trace back techniques for survivor memory management in the Viterbi algorithm

A general framework for designing survivor memory based on the traceback technique with any number of traceback pointers is presented. It is shown that the memory size is reduced by using more traceback pointers and that a uniform speed realization can be achieved with more than one trace back pointer. Two implementations of the K-pointer trace-back techniques based on standard RAMs and custom-shift registers are presented