Patent attributes
Methods for encoding and decoding Polar codes are provided, together with apparatuses for performing the methods. An encoding method combines first and second sequences of information bits and CRC bits and a plurality of frozen bits into an input vector. The input vector is multiplied by a generator matrix for a Polar code to produce a concatenated codeword. A decoding method receives such a codeword and produces a decoded vector by generating successive levels of a decision tree. For a first number of levels of the decision tree, paths beyond a first maximum number of most probable paths are discarded. For a second number of levels of the decision tree, paths beyond a second maximum number of most probable paths are discarded. In some cases, the decoding method may have improved performance compared to some decoding methods for non-concatenated codewords.