In this work, we address the low-complexity construction of shortened and
punctured polar codes from a unified view. While several independent puncturing
and shortening designs were attempted in the literature, our goal is a unique,
low-complexity construction encompassing both techniques in order to achieve
any code length and rate. We observe that our solution significantly reduces
the construction complexity as compared to state-of-the-art solutions while
providing a block error rate performance comparable to constructions that are
highly optimized for specific lengths and rates. This makes the constructed
polar codes highly suitable for practical application in future communication
systems requiring a large set of polar codes with different lengths and rates.Comment: to appear in WCNC 2017 - "Polar Coding in Wireless Communications:
Theory and Implementation" Worksho