N-user trellis coding, in conjunction with Viterbi or sequential decoding, permits the multiple-
access function to be combined with forward error correction. The distance and rate
properties are analyzed for linear (convolutional) N-user trellis codes, and the use of
nonlinear N-user trellis coding is discussed. A procedure is given for constructing N-user
convolutional-code N-tuples with large free distance. Finally the error performance is …