New Fast Nodes for 3×3 Kernel Polar Codes
Maryam Haghighi Ardakani, Muhammad Hanif, Masoud Ardakani, Chintha Tellambura · 2020
Non-binary kernels are used to improve the length flexibility of polar codes. Given the long decoding latency of the successive-cancellation (SC) decoder, devising fast decoding solutions for non-binary kernels is necessary. In this work, we identify a new node in the decoding tree of polar codes which are constructed by commonly used ternary kernels. We call this t-dimensional SPC (tD-SPC) node and propose a low-complexity decoder for it. Moreover, we adapt a node introduced for binary kernel to be used in the fast SC decoding of the 3×3 kernel polar codes. Simulation results show that implementing the proposed fast decoders can reduce the decoding latency by more than 40% if a performance loss of just 0.5 dB is tolerated.