Error correction in data storage systems using polar codes

Abstract

This paper investigates error correction in two-dimensional (2-D) intersymbol interference (ISI) channels using polar codes. 2-D channels offer high data storage capacity compared to traditional one-dimensional (1-D) channels but suffer from greater ISI effects. Error correction codes can be used to mitigate the effects of ISI in 2-D data storage systems and improve their performance and reliability. Polar codes achieve the symmetric capacity for the class of binary-input discrete memoryless channels (B-DMCs). A post-processing technique is proposed to improve the performance of polar codes in the 2-D ISI channel. The simplified successive cancellation (SSC) polar decoder is useful for data storage systems owing to its good waterfall region performance, low error floors and good throughput rates and is therefore adopted for the study. Simulation results indicate that the proposed technique has an error correction performance comparable to some existing decoders and has better performance than other decoding techniques.