Some Aspects of Finite State Channel related to Hidden Markov Process

We have no satisfactory capacity formula for most channels with finite states. Here, we consider some interesting examples of finite state channels, such as Gilbert-Elliot channel, trapdoor channel, etc., to reveal special characters of problems and difficulties to determine the capacities. Meanwhile, we give a simple expression of the capacity formula for Gilbert-Elliot channel by using a hidden Markov source for the optimal input process. This idea should be extended to other finite state channels.