Adaptive List Flip Decoder for Polar Codes with High-Order Error Correction Capability and a Simplified Flip Metric

Area of Science:

• Coding Theory
• Information Theory
• Digital Communications

Background:

• Efficient decoders are crucial for polar codes, especially with limited code lengths.
• List flip decoders offer a balance between performance and complexity.
• The dynamic successive cancellation list flip (D-SCLF) decoder shows promise but has computational limitations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To design a more computationally efficient decoder for polar codes.
• To address the complexity issues of the D-SCLF decoder's flip metric.
• To maintain or improve the error correction performance of polar code decoders.

Main Methods:

• Developed a novel heuristic simplified flip metric for the list flip decoder.
• Replaced complex nonlinear operations with simpler linear operations.
• Integrated an adaptive list decoding strategy with the list flip approach.

Main Results:

• The proposed simplified flip metric in the adaptive list flip (ALF) decoder does not degrade performance compared to the D-SCLF decoder.
• The ALF decoder effectively corrects high-order errors.
• Theoretical analysis and simulations confirm reduced average complexity for the ALF decoder.

Conclusions:

• The adaptive list flip (ALF) decoder offers a superior trade-off between performance and complexity for polar codes.
• The simplified flip metric enhances the practical applicability of advanced list flip decoders.
• The ALF decoder presents a viable solution for efficient polar code decoding in systems with limited code lengths.