Improved Successive Cancellation Decoding of Polar Codes

As improved versions of the successive cancellation (SC) decoding algorithm, the successive cancellation list (SCL) decoding and the successive cancellation stack (SCS) decoding are used to improve the finite-length performance of polar codes. In this paper, unified descriptions of the SC, SCL, and SCS decoding algorithms are given as path search procedures on the code tree of polar codes. Combining the principles of SCL and SCS, a new decoding algorithm called the successive cancellation hybrid (SCH) is proposed. This proposed algorithm can provide a flexible configuration when the time and space complexities are limited. Furthermore, a pruning technique is also proposed to lower the complexity by reducing unnecessary path searching operations. Performance and complexity analysis based on simulations shows that under proper configurations, all the three improved successive cancellation (ISC) decoding algorithms can approach the performance of the maximum likelihood (ML) decoding but with acceptable complexity. With the help of the proposed pruning technique, the time and space complexities of ISC decoders can be significantly reduced and be made very close to those of the SC decoder in the high signal-to-noise ratio regime.