  The equivalence of a systematic convolutional encoder as linear state-space
control system is first realized and presented through an example. Then,
utilizing this structure, a new optimal state-sequence estimator is derived, in
the spirit of the Viterbi algorithm. Afterwords, a novel way to perform optimal
decoding is achieved, named the Bowyer Decoder, which is a fully deterministic
decoder in that the full FSM is known to the decoding algorithm.
