Aspects of the disclosure provide polar code rate matching methods. A first method can include determining whether to puncture or shorten a mother polar code according to a mother code rate and/or a rate matched code rate, and selecting K positions in the sequence of N input bits for input of K information bits to a polar encoder according to an offline prepared index list ordered according to the reliabilities of respective synthesized channels. Frozen input bits caused by puncturing or shortening are skipped during the selection. A second method includes generating a mother polar code, rearranging code bits of the mother polar code to form a rearranged sequence that can be stored in a circular buffer, and performing, in a unified way, one of puncturing, shortening, or repetition on the rearranged sequence to obtain a rate matched code.

An approach for encoding a physical layer (PL) header of a PL data frame is provided. The PL header comprises sixteen information bits u_i, (i = 0,1, 2, ... ,15), and the encoding is based on a convolutional code, whereby, for each information bit, five associated parity bits p_i,k, (k = 0, 1, 2, 3, 4) are generated, resulting in 80 codebits. The resulting 80 codebits are punctured to form a (16,77) codeword (c₀, c₁, c₂, ..., c₇₆). The codebits of the (16,77) codeword are repeated to generate a (16,154) physical layer signaling codeword (c₀, c₀, c₁, c₁, c₂, c₂, ... , c₇₆, c₇₆) for transmission of the PL data frame over a channel of a communications network. Further, for each information bit, each of the associated five parity bits is generated based on a parity bit generator, as follows: p_i,k = (u_i * g_k,0) ⊕ (S₀ * g_k,₁)⊕(S₁ * g_k,₂)⊕(S₂ * g_k,₃)⊕(S₃ * g_k,4)⊕, where S₀ = u_i-1, S₁ = u_i-2, S₂ = u_i-3, S₃ = u_i-4 , and wherein generator polynomials for g_k = (g_k,0,g_k,1,g_k,2,g_k,3,g_k,4,), are as follows: g₀ = (1,0,1,0,1); g₁ = (1,0,1,1,1); g₂ = (1,1,0,1,1); g₃ = (1,1,1,1,1); g₄ = (1,1,0,0,1).

Detecting, avoiding and/or correcting problematic puncturing patterns in parity bit streams used when implementing punctured Turbo codes is achieved without having to avoid desirable code rates. This enables identification/avoidance of regions of relatively poor Turbo code performance. Forward error correction comprising Turbo coding and puncturing achieves a smooth functional relationship between any measure of performance and the effective coding rate resulting from combining the lower rate code generated by the Turbo encoder (600) with puncturing of the parity bits. In one embodiment, methods to correct/avoid degradations due to Turbo coding are implemented by puncturing interactions when two or more stages of rate matching (610, 620) are employed.

Detecting, avoiding and/or correcting problematic puncturing patterns in parity bit streams used when implementing punctured Turbo codes is achieved without having to avoid desirable code rates. This enables identification/avoidance of regions of relatively poor Turbo code performance. Forward error correction comprising Turbo coding and puncturing achieves a smooth functional relationship between any measure of performance and the effective coding rate resulting from combining the lower rate code generated by the Turbo encoder (600) with puncturing of the parity bits. In one embodiment, methods to correct/avoid degradations due to Turbo coding are implemented by puncturing interactions when two or more stages of rate matching (610, 620) are employed.