In order to reduce the high complexity of the successive cancellation list (SCL) algorithm for polar codes, a simplified SCL decoding algorithm based on critical sets (CS-SCL decoding algorithm) is proposed. The algorithm firstly constructs the critical sets according to the channel characteristics of the polar codes as well as comprehensively considering both the minimum Hamming weight (MHW) of the information bits and the channel reliability. The information bits within the critical sets and the path splitting are still performed by the SCL decoding algorithm while the information bits outside the critical sets are directly performed by the hard decision. Thus, the number of path ordering, copying, and deleting can be reduced during decoding. Furthermore, the computational complexity of the SCL decoding can also be reduced. Simulation results demonstrate that the decoding complexity of the proposed CS-SCL decoding algorithm, compared with the conventional SCL decoding algorithm, is reduced by at least 70%, while compared with the simplified SCL (PS-SS-SCL) algorithm which constructs the critical set with the first and second information bits of the Rate-1 nodes, its decoding complexity can also be reduced. Moreover, the loss of the error correction performance for the proposed CS-SCL decoding algorithm is minor. Therefore, the proposed CS-SCL algorithm is effective and can provide a reasonable tradeoff between the decoding performance and complexity for the decoding algorithm of polar codes.
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