Hybrid Polar Encoding with Applications in Non-Coherent Channels

In coding theory, an error-correcting code can be encoded either systematically or non-systematically. In a systematic encode, the input data is embedded in the encoded output. Conversely, in a non-systematic code, the output does not contain the input symbols. In this paper, we propose a hybrid encoding scheme for polar codes, in which some data bits are systematically encoded while the rest are non-systematically encoded. Based on the proposed scheme, we design a joint channel estimation and data decoding scheme. We use the systematic bits in the hybrid encoding scheme as pilots for channel estimation. To mitigate the code rate loss caused by the pilots and to provide additional error detecting capability, we propose a dynamic pilot design by building connections between the systematic bits and non-systematic bits. Simulation results show that the performance of the proposed scheme approaches that of the traditional non-systematic polar coding scheme with perfect channel state information (CSI) with the increase of SNR.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figure

The Effect of Error Propagation on the Performance of Polar Codes Utilizing Successive Cancellation Decoding Algorithm

 In this paper, we discuss and analyze the effect of error propagation on the performance polar codes decoded using the successive cancellation algorithm. We show that error propagation due to erroneous bit decision is a catastrophic issue for the successive cancellation decoding of polar codes. Even a wrong decision on a single bit may cause an abundance of successor bits to be wrongly decoded. Furthermore, we observe that the performance of polar codes is significantly improved if even single bit errors are detected and corrected before the decoding of successor bits

Polar-Coded OFDM with Index Modulation

Polar codes, as the first error-correcting codes with an explicit construction to provably achieve thesymmetric capacity of memoryless channels, which are constructed based on channel polarization, have recently become a primary contender in communication networks for achieving tighter requirements with relatively low complexity. As one of the contributions in this thesis, three modified polar decoding schemes are proposed. These schemes include enhanced versions of successive cancellation-flip (SC-F), belief propagation (BP), and sphere decoding (SD). The proposed SC-F utilizes novel potential incorrect bits selection criteria and stack to improve its error correction performance. Next, to make the decoding performance of BP better, permutation and feedback structure are utilized. Then, in order to reduce the complexity without compromising performance, a SD by using novel decoding strategies according to modified path metric (PM) and radius extension is proposed. Additionally, to solve the problem that BP has redundant iterations, a new stopping criterion based on bit different ratio (BDR) is proposed. According to the simulation results and mathematical proof, all proposed schemes can achieve corresponding performance improvement or complexity reduction compared with existing works. Beside applying polar coding, to achieve a reliable and flexible transmission in a wireless communication system, a modified version of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) modulation based on index modulation, called OFDM-in-phase/quadrature-IM (OFDM-I/Q-IM), is applied. This modulation scheme can simultaneously improve spectral efficiency and bit-error rate (BER) performance with great flexibility in design and implementation. Hence, OFDM-I/Q-IM is considered as a potential candidate in the new generation of cellular networks. As the main contribution in this work, a polar-coded OFDM-I/Q-IM system is proposed. The general design guidelines for overcoming the difficulties associated with the application of polar codes in OFDM-I/Q-IM are presented. In the proposed system, at the transmitter, we employ a random frozen bits appending scheme which not only makes the polar code compatible with OFDM-I/Q-IM but also improves the BER performance of the system. Furthermore, at the receiver, it is shown that the \textit{a posteriori} information for each index provided by the index detector is essential for the iterative decoding of polar codes by the BP algorithm. Simulation results show that the proposed polar-coded OFDM-I/Q-IM system outperforms its OFDM counterpart in terms of BER performance