On OTFS Modulation for High-Doppler Fading Channels

Abstract

Orthogonal time frequency space (OTFS) modulation is a 2-dimensional (2D) modulation scheme designed in the delay-Doppler domain, unlike traditional modulation schemes which are designed in the time-frequency domain. Through a series of 2D transformations, OTFS converts a doubly-dispersive channel into an almost non-fading channel in the delay-Doppler domain. In this domain, each symbol in a frame experiences an almost constant fade, thus achieving significant performance gains over existing modulation schemes such as OFDM. The sparse delay-Doppler impulse response which reflects the actual physical geometry of the wireless channel enables efficient channel estimation, especially in high-Doppler fading channels. This paper investigates OTFS from a signal detection and channel estimation perspective, and proposes a Markov chain Monte-Carlo sampling based detection scheme and a pseudo-random noise (PN) pilot based channel estimation scheme in the delay-Doppler domain.