Performance analysis of polar codes with soft input successive cancellation

Polar codes were introduced recently as error correction codes to achieve asymmetric capacity in a binary-input discrete memory-less channel (B-DMC) using the channel polarization characteristics. In this paper, we propose the use of a soft input successive cancellation (SC) decoding algorithm for polar codes, and analyze the bit error rate (BER) performance of polar codes in an additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel, which is widely used in analysis communication systems through numerical simulation. The soft input SC decoding algorithm showed a better performance than a hard decision SC decoding algorithm. To implement the soft input SC decoding algorithm in the future, more research on the number of bits is needed.