Low-complexity decoding architecture for rate-compatible puncturing polar codes

Polar codes are the first family of codes which can achieve the channel capacity. Motivated by the demand of high speed transmission for 5G communications, researchers are keen to explore efficient decoding architecture for polar codes. In this paper, we propose a low-complexity decoding architecture for rate-compatible puncturing polar (RCPP) codes with two different puncturing methods, quasi-uniform puncturing (QUP) and shortening. By removing the redundant processing elements for the recursive calculation of log-likelihood ratio, the proposed decoding architecture significantly reduces the space complexity and latency with no BLER performance loss. Moreover, we illustrate that the proposed decoding architecture reduces more complexity if two puncturing methods are employed simultaneously, with negligible BLER performance loss.