Adaptive polar coding scheme using hybrid pilot and frozen bits for satellite laser communications

Abstract

Polar codes can achieve arbitrary coding rates by varying the number of frozen bits. However, the large propagation delay in satellite laser communications complicates the adaptive setting of the optimal polar coding rate using bidirectional control signaling. In addition, channel estimation in fading channels requires pilot symbols, resulting in a reduction in rate efficiency. To address these simultaneously, we propose a novel one-way adaptive polar-code transmission scheme that performs both channel and code rate estimations using only frozen bits. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed scheme produces a higher throughput than existing single-rate transmission schemes.