Gray isometries for finite $p$-groups

We construct two classes of Gray maps, called type-I Gray map and type-II Gray map, for a finite $p$-group $G$. Type-I Gray maps are constructed based on the existence of a Gray map for a maximal subgroup $H$ of $G$. When $G$ is a semidirect product of two finite $p$-groups $H$ and $K$, both $H$ and $K$ admit Gray maps and the corresponding homomorphism $psi:Hlongrightarrow {rm Aut}(K)$ is compatible with the Gray map of $K$ in a sense which we will explain, we construct type-II Gray maps for $G$. Finally, we consider group codes over the dihedral group $D_8$ of order 8 given by the set of their generators, and derive a representation and an encoding procedure for such codes.