Orthogonal Time Frequency Space Modulation

Abstract

This paper introduces a new two-dimensional modulation technique called Orthogonal Time Frequency Space (OTFS) modulation. OTFS has the novel and important feature of being designed in the delay-Doppler domain. When coupled with a suitable equalizer, OTFS modulation is able to exploit the full channel diversity over both time and frequency. Moreover, it converts the fading, time-varying wireless channel experienced by modulated signals such as OFDM into a time-independent channel with a complex channel gain that is essentially constant for all symbols. This design obviates the need for transmitter adaptation, and greatly simplifies system operation. The paper describes the basic operating principles of OTFS as well as a possible implementation as an overlay to current or anticipated standardized systems. OTFS is shown to provide significant performance improvement in systems with high Doppler, short packets, and/or large antenna array. In particular, simulation results indicate at least several dB of block error rate performance improvement for OTFS over OFDM in all of these settings.