Error Detection Based on Generalized Successive Cancellation List Decoding for Polar Codes

Successive cancellation list (SCL) decoding has been widely adopted for polar codes, which allows near maximum likelihood performance with sufficiently large list size. In this work, we show that, if the list size is 2<sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">γ</sup> , where γ is the fundamental quantity called mixing factor, then a modification to SCL decoding can implement Forney’s generalized decoding rule. Hence, it provides an efficient means to discard unreliable decisions. The performance achieved by short polar codes under the proposed generalized SCL decoding is analyzed via Monte Carlo simulations.