Efficient Perturbation-Based SC Decoding for Long Polar Codes
Abstract
Soft information perturbations can significantly improve the successive cancellation (SC) decoding performance of polar codes. This is an effective method for realizing low-latency yet high performance for long polar codes, since each perturbation-based SC (PSC) decoding can be performed in parallel. However, little theoretical insight has been revealed so far regarding its work rationale. This paper provides the theoretical analysis of the soft information perturbation. It reveals that PSC decoding improves the SC decoding performance through correcting the erroneous bit estimations, especially the first erroneous bit (FEB). It further validates that perturbing the soft information does not degrade the error-correction capability of SC decoding. Such revelations lead to the design of optimal perturbations that maximizes the FEB correction probability, resulting in an enhanced PSC decoding performance. Based on this, a novel hybrid PSC (HPSC) decoding is proposed. By introducing the random and biased perturbations, the HPSC decoding can better divert from the initial erroneous estimation and converge to the intended one. Our simulation results demonstrate that with the optimal perturbation, the HPSC decoding can achieve a similar performance as the cyclic redundancy check (CRC) aided SC list (CA-SCL) decoding, while avoiding path sorting and expansion.
Related
- Parallel Successive Cancellation Perturbation-Enhanced Decoding of Polar Codes via Offline Variance Design
- Log Density Spectrum Based Decoding of Polar Codes for Channels with Strong Phase Noise
- PMR-Aided Shifted-Pruning SCL-Flip Decoding for CRC-Aided Polar Codes
- Semantic SCL Decoding for Polar Codes
- Chordal Codes: Code Construction and Efficient Gaussian-Elimination Decoding
BibTeX
@misc{yang2026efficient,
title = {{Efficient Perturbation-Based SC Decoding for Long Polar Codes}},
author = {Zhongjun Yang and Zhichen Liu and Li Chen and Xianbin Wang and Huazi Zhang},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.27744},
eprint = {2610.27744},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.27744},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Efficient Perturbation-Based SC Decoding for Long Polar Codes
AU - Zhongjun Yang
AU - Zhichen Liu
AU - Li Chen
AU - Xianbin Wang
AU - Huazi Zhang
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/20
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.27744
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.27744
AB - Soft information perturbations can significantly improve the successive cancellation (SC) decoding performance of polar codes. This is an effective method for realizing low-latency yet high performance for long polar codes, since each perturbation-based SC (PSC) decoding can be performed in parallel. However, little theoretical insight has been revealed so far regarding its work rationale. This paper provides the theoretical analysis of the soft information perturbation. It reveals that PSC decoding improves the SC decoding performance through correcting the erroneous bit estimations, especially the first erroneous bit (FEB). It further validates that perturbing the soft information does not degrade the error-correction capability of SC decoding. Such revelations lead to the design of optimal perturbations that maximizes the FEB correction probability, resulting in an enhanced PSC decoding performance. Based on this, a novel hybrid PSC (HPSC) decoding is proposed. By introducing the random and biased perturbations, the HPSC decoding can better divert from the initial erroneous estimation and converge to the intended one. Our simulation results demonstrate that with the optimal perturbation, the HPSC decoding can achieve a similar performance as the cyclic redundancy check (CRC) aided SC list (CA-SCL) decoding, while avoiding path sorting and expansion.
ER -