A Hybrid Polar Coding Design over Non-Coherent Channels

Channel estimation is a fundamental step for communication over fading channels. Traditionally, pilot-aided channel estimation is performed before data transmission. In this paper, we propose a joint channel estimation and decoding scheme for block fading channels based on a hybrid construction of systematic and non-systematic polar codes. The systematic bits in our coding scheme serve 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) as the SNR increases, and can even outperform it in the high SNR region under some channel settings.