The Existence of Strongly-MDS Convolutional Codes

Abstract: It is known that maximum distance separable and maximum distance profile convolutional codes exist over large enough finite fields of any characteristic for all parameters $(n,k,\delta)$. It has been conjectured that the same is true for convolutional codes that are strongly maximum distance separable. Using methods from linear systems theory, we resolve this conjecture by showing that, over a large enough finite field of any characteristic, codes which are simultaneously maximum distance profile and strongly maximum distance separable exist for all parameters $(n,k,\delta)$.