  We define the bidirectional distance profile (BDP) of a convolutional code as
the minimum of the distance profiles of the code and its corresponding
"reverse" code. We present tables of codes with the optimum BDP (OBDP), which
minimize the average complexity of bidirectional sequential decoding
algorithms. The computer search is accelerated by the facts that optimum
distance profile (ODP) codes of larger memory must have ODP codes of smaller
memory as their "prefixes", and that OBDP codes can be obtained by
"concatenating" ODP and reverse ODP codes of smaller memory. We compare the
performance of OBDP codes and other codes by simulation.
