Rethinking Modulation and Detection for High Doppler Channels

Abstract

We present two modulation and detection techniques that are designed to allow for efficient equalization for channels that exhibit an arbitrary Doppler spread but no delay spread. These techniques are based on principles similar to techniques designed for time-invariant delay spread channels (e.g., Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing or OFDM) and have the same computational complexity. Through numerical simulations, we show that effective equalization is possible for channels that exhibit a high Doppler spread and even a modest delay spread, whereas equalized OFDM exhibits a strictly worse performance in these environments. Our results indicate that, in rapidly time-varying channels, such as those found in high-mobility or mmWave deployments, new modulation coupled with appropriate channel estimation and equalization techniques may significantly outperform modulation and detection schemes that are designed for static or slowly time varying multipath channels.