Polar compressive sampling: A novel technique using Polar codes

We explore the relationship between polar and RM codes and we describe a coding scheme which improves upon the performance of the standard polar code at practical block lengths. Our starting point is the experimental observation that RM codes have a smaller error probability than polar codes under MAP decoding. This motivates us to introduce a family of codes that "interpolates" between RM and polar codes, call this family C-inter = {C-alpha : alpha is an element of [0, 1]}, where C-alpha vertical bar(alpha=1) is the original polar code, and C-alpha vertical bar(alpha=0) is an RM code. Based on numerical observations, we remark that the error probability under MAP decoding is an increasing function of a. MAP decoding has in general exponential complexity, but empirically the performance of polar codes at finite block lengths is boosted by moving along the family C-inter even under low-complexity decoding schemes such as, for instance, belief propagation or successive cancellation list decoder. We demonstrate the performance gain via numerical simulations for transmission over the erasure channel as well as the Gaussian channel.

Reed-Muller (RM) codes and polar codes are generated by the same matrix $G_m= \bigl[\begin{smallmatrix}1 & 0 \\ 1 & 1 \\ \end{smallmatrix}\bigr]^{\otimes m}$ but using different subset of rows. RM codes select simply rows having largest weights. Polar codes select instead rows having the largest conditional mutual information proceeding top to down in $G_m$; while this is a more elaborate and channel-dependent rule, the top-to-down ordering has the advantage of making the conditional mutual information polarize, giving directly a capacity-achieving code on any binary memoryless symmetric channel (BMSC). RM codes are yet to be proved to have such property. In this paper, we reconnect RM codes to polarization theory. It is shown that proceeding in the RM code ordering, i.e., not top-to-down but from the lightest to the heaviest rows in $G_m$, the conditional mutual information again polarizes. We further demonstrate that it does so faster than for polar codes. This implies that $G_m$ contains another code, different than the polar code and called here the twin code, that is provably capacity-achieving on any BMSC. This proves a necessary condition for RM codes to achieve capacity on BMSCs. It further gives a sufficient condition if the rows with the largest conditional mutual information correspond to the heaviest rows, i.e., if the twin code is the RM code. We show here that the two codes bare similarity with each other and give further evidence that they are likely the same.

This paper investigates properties of polar codes that can be potentially useful in real-world applications. We start with analyzing the performance of finite-length polar codes over the binary erasure channel (BEC), while assuming belief propagation as the decoding method. We provide a stopping set analysis for the factor graph of polar codes, where we find the size of the minimum stopping set. We also find the girth of the graph for polar codes. Our analysis along with bit error rate (BER) simulations demonstrate that finite-length polar codes show superior error floor performance compared to the conventional capacity-approaching coding techniques. In order to take advantage from this property while avoiding the shortcomings of polar codes, we consider the idea of combining polar codes with other coding schemes. We propose a polar code-based concatenated scheme to be used in Optical Transport Networks (OTNs) as a potential real-world application. Comparing against conventional concatenation techniques for OTNs, we show that the proposed scheme outperforms the existing methods by closing the gap to the capacity while avoiding error floor, and maintaining a low complexity at the same time.

Polar coding is a code construction method that can be used to construct capacity-achieving codes for binary-input channels with certain symmetries. Polar coding may be considered as a generalization of Reed-Muller (RM) coding. Here, we demonstrate the performance advantages of polar codes over RM codes under belief-propagation decoding.

In this paper, we propose partially information coupled bit-interleaved polar coded modulation (PIC-BIPCM), which is a class of spatially coupled polar coding schemes designed for <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$2^{Q}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> -ary modulations. Specifically, we consider PIC-BIPCM schemes respectively constructed with three BIPCM schemes: direct BIPCM, punctured BIPCM, and multi-kernel BIPCM. We analyze the error performance of the proposed PIC-BIPCM over the binary erasure channel (BEC) via density evolution. With the analysis as a guideline, we jointly design the positions of coupled bits and the modulation bit-mapper by taking into account the partial polarization of finite length polar codes as well as the unequal error protection of high order modulations. Simulation results demonstrate significant performance improvement of the proposed PIC-BIPCM over the uncoupled BIPCM on both BEC and AWGN channels.

The minimum Hamming distance is not considered for the traditional rate-compatible shortened polar (RCSP) codes, which may cause performance degradations. In this paper we propose a hybrid algorithm to construct RCSP codes based on Reed-Muller (RM) code-aided. The shortened bits and pre-frozen bits are jointly designed by the row weight property of the common generator matrix \(G_N\) for the RM/Polar code. First, the selected shortened bits are guaranteed to be uniquely depended upon the pre-frozen bits, which makes them completely be known by the decoder. Second, the proposed construction method is designed in such way, so that the minimum row weight of \(G_N\) can be maximized. More specifically, when multiple candidate positions satisfy the conditions (weight-1 column constraint), those rows having less weights are deleted to form the shortened/pre-frozen bits, which can reduce the number of rows with small weight and naturally, make the resulting RCSP codes have larger minimum Hamming distance in average. Simulation results show that the proposed RCSP codes perform better than the traditional shortened codes at low code rates. While at high code rates, the proposed RCSP codes can achieve better performance than that of the quasi uniform punctured (QUP) polar codes, especially at large signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) region. The proposed RCSP codes can find applications in future communications, such as the beyond 5th generation (B5G) and 6th generation (6G) systems.KeywordsPolar codesRate-compatibleReed-Muller codesHamming distanceShortening

We compare the performance of short-length linear binary codes on the binary erasure channel and the binary-input Gaussian channel. We use a universal decoder that can decode any linear binary block code: Gaussian-elimination based Maximum-Likelihood decoder on the erasure channel and probabilistic Ordered Statistics Decoder on the Gaussian channel. As such we compare codes and not decoders. The word error rate versus the channel parameter is found for LDPC, Reed-Muller, Polar, and BCH codes at length 256 bits. BCH codes outperform other codes in absence of cyclic redundancy check. Under joint decoding, the concatenation of a cyclic redundancy check makes all codes perform very close to optimal lower bounds.

In this paper we construct new subcodes of the second-order binary Reed-Muller code by using the permutation group and by projecting the code onto codes with smaller parameters. The permutation group of Reed-Muller codes is the general affine group and can be decomposed into the semi-direct product of the translation group and the general linear group. The action of the translation group projects the second order Reed-Muller code onto copies of the first order Reed-Muller code. The general linear group projects the code onto codes for which we can control the useful length and the dimension. These parameters depend on the dimension of the eigenspace of the chosen element of the general linear group for the eigenvalue 1.

Recently, it has been verified that the Reed-Muller (RM) code, which has been predicted for a long time in the field of code theory, achieves capacity in a binary erasure channel (BEC) with a MAP (maximum a posteriori) decoder. Through weight distribution interpretation, it was also discovered that the RM code achieves a binary memoryless symmetric (BMS) channel capacity. A successive cancellation list (SCL) technique has been studied as a practical decoder instead of a MAP decoder. In this paper, the performance improvement potential that can be improved when a generalized concatenated code (GCC) with an outer code is designed to improve the practical SCL decoder performance is analyzed. When information bits are used as frozen bits in these code-word designs, we analyze an inter-code-word distance and the decoding outage probability of the designed code. We expect that our results can be used as a conceptual base for improving communication methods in the future development of channel encoding technology.

Polar codes are the first class of channel codes achieving the symmetric capacity of the binary-input discrete memoryless channels (B-DMC) with efficient encoding and decoding algorithms. But the weight spectrum of polar codes is relatively poor compared to Reed-Muller (RM) codes, which degrades their maximum-likehood (ML) performance. Pre-transformation with an upper-triangular matrix (including cyclic redundancy check (CRC), parity-check (PC) and polarization-adjusted convolutional (PAC) codes), improves weight spectrum while retaining polarization. In this paper, the weight spectrum of upper-triangular pre-transformed polar codes is mathematically analyzed. In particular, we focus on calculating the number of low-weight codewords due to their impact on error-correction performance. Simulation results verify the accuracy of the analysis.

A new family of modified polar codes and a new permutation selection scheme for belief propagation list (BPL) decoding are presented. We first propose a new code construction methodology to interpolate between Reed-Muller (RM) codes and polar codes. By taking advantage of an existing partial order on bit-channels whose corresponding indices share the same Hamming weight, we analyze the complexity of the new construction method. It is shown that we need to compute the reliability of roughly a fraction 1/log <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">3/2</sup> N of all the bit-channels contained in the subset. Then, we explore a special family of factor-graph layer permutations called stable permutations (SPs) that preserve a specified information set when the corresponding bit permutations are applied to message bit indices. Simulation results show that the error-rate performance of the new family of codes is better than that of 5G polar codes under successive cancellation list (SCL) decoding. In addition, the SP selection scheme stands out as a preferred one for BPL decoding in terms of error-rate performance, while the average number of iterations per belief propagation (BP) decoder on the permuted factor graph is close to that of the original BP decoder when an early stopping condition is applied.

A joint channel estimation and channel coding scheme is presented for finite-state Markov channels using polar codes. Unlike the conventional approach of first estimating all channel parameters and then performing channel decoding separately, the proposed scheme incorporates a subset of reliable estimates of channel parameters into the decoding algorithm and computes decoding metrics averaged over the statistical behavior of the Markov channel. By adapting list decoding (without any inner code), channel estimation and decoding steps can be performed iteratively to boost the reliability of channel estimation as well as error correction. In order to improve the performance even further, a new pilot transmission scheme is developed that utilizes the structure of polar codes and sends pilot symbols along with code symbols. This construction can be viewed as a new family of shortened polar codes that can be of independent interest. Simulation results demonstrate the benefit of the proposed approach compared to existing solutions.

Polar codes are a new class of error correcting linear block codes, whose generator matrix is specified by the knowledge of transmission channel parameters, code length and code dimension. Moreover, regarding computational security, it is assumed that an attacker with a restricted processing power has unlimited access to the transmission media. Therefore, the attacker can construct the generator matrix of polar codes, especially in the case of binary erasure channels, on which this matrix can be easily constructed. In this paper, we introduce a novel method to keep the generator matrix of polar codes in secret in a way that the attacker cannot access the required information to decode the intended polar code. With the help of this method, a secret key cryptosystem is proposed based on non-systematic polar codes. In fact, the main objective of this study is to achieve an acceptable level of security and reliability through taking advantage of the special properties of polar codes. The analyses revealed that our scheme resists the typical attacks on the secret key cryptosystems based on linear block codes. In addition, by employing some efficient methods, the key length of the proposed scheme is decreased compared to that of the previous cryptosystems. Moreover, this scheme enjoys other advantages including high code rate, and proper error performance as well.

In this work, we present a deterministic algorithm for computing the entire weight distribution of polar codes. As the first step, we derive an efficient recursive procedure to compute the weight distribution that arises in successive cancellation decoding of polar codes along any decoding path. This solves the open problem recently posed by Polyanskaya, Davletshin, and Polyanskii. Using this recursive procedure, at code length <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">n</i> , we can compute the weight distribution of any <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">polar cosets</i> in time <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">O</i> ( <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">n</i> <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> ). We show that any polar code can be represented as a disjoint union of such polar cosets; moreover, this representation extends to polar codes with dynamically frozen bits. However, the number of polar cosets in such representation scales exponentially with a parameter introduced herein, which we call the <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">mixing factor</i> . To upper bound the complexity of our algorithm for polar codes being decreasing monomial codes, we study the range of their mixing factors. We prove that among all decreasing monomial codes with rates at most 1/2, self-dual Reed-Muller codes have the largest mixing factors. To further reduce the complexity of our algorithm, we make use of the fact that, as decreasing monomial codes, polar codes have a large automorphism group. That automorphism group includes the block lower-triangular affine group (BLTA), which in turn contains the lower-triangular affine group (LTA). We prove that a subgroup of LTA acts transitively on certain subsets of decreasing monomial codes, thereby drastically reducing the number of polar cosets that we need to evaluate. This complexity reduction makes it possible to compute the weight distribution of polar codes at length <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">n</i> = 128.

We introduce a new approach to proving that a sequence of deterministic linear codes achieves capacity on an erasure channel under maximum a posteriori decoding. Rather than relying on the precise structure of the codes, our method exploits code symmetry. In particular, the technique applies to any sequence of linear codes where the block lengths are strictly increasing, the code rates converge, and the permutation group of each code is doubly transitive. In a nutshell, we show that symmetry alone implies near-optimal performance. An important consequence of this result is that a sequence of Reed-Muller codes with increasing block length and converging rate achieves capacity. This possibility has been suggested previously in the literature, but it has only been proven for cases where the limiting code rate is 0 or 1. Moreover, these results extend naturally to affine-invariant codes and, thus, to all extended primitive narrow-sense BCH codes. This is used to resolve, in the affirmative, the existence question for capacity-achieving sequences of binary cyclic codes. The primary tools used in the proofs are the sharp threshold property for symmetric monotone boolean functions and the area theorem for extrinsic information transfer (EXIT) functions.