Embedded Delay-Doppler Channel Estimation for Orthogonal Time Frequency Space Modulation

Orthogonal time frequency space (OTFS) modulation was shown to provide significant error performance advantages over orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) over delay–Doppler channels. The channel impulse response is needed at the receiver to perform OTFS detection. In this work, we analyze OTFS-based channel estimation using a pilot symbol embedded in the data frame: the pilot symbol with a number of guard zero-symbols is suitably located on the delay–Doppler grid containing the information symbols. Different symbol arrangements are proposed depending on whether the channel has integer or fractional Doppler paths relative to an integer grid. The channel information is first estimated from a group of received symbols using a simple threshold method. The estimated information is then used for data detection within the same frame, via a message passing (MP) algorithm. Numerical results compare the error performance of the proposed schemes and the OTFS scheme with ideal channel estimation under similar spectral and energy efficiency. Moreover, our results show that OTFS with non-ideal channel estimation can still outperform OFDM with ideal channel estimation.