Mixed-Kernels Constructions of Polar Codes.

Mixed kernels of polar codes are mapping functions having inputs of different alphabet sizes that are used to construct polar coding scheme. These schemes are constructed by incorporating several (homogeneous) kernels, each one over different alphabet size. In this paper, the idea of mixed-kernels construction is introduced and analyzed. An asymptotic analysis of the proposed scheme shows that its polarization properties are strongly related to the ones of the constituent kernels. Simulation of finite length instances of the scheme indicate their advantages both in error correction performance and complexity compared to the known polar coding structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]