Project
OTFS Waveform Design
Investigating OFDM → OTFS for next-generation wireless communication
Overview
Beyond OFDM: designing for high-mobility channels
OFDM struggles in high-Doppler, high-mobility environments — the exact conditions that next-generation wireless systems (mobile broadband, IoT, vehicular networks) increasingly need to handle well.
I investigated Orthogonal Time Frequency Space (OTFS) modulation as an alternative to OFDM, focused on understanding how modulating data in the delay-Doppler domain instead of the time-frequency domain changes robustness and spectral efficiency.
Approach
Simulating BER performance across SNR conditions
To compare the two waveforms fairly, I built simulations that swept signal-to-noise ratio conditions and measured bit-error-rate (BER) performance for both schemes.
Waveform modeling → channel simulation → BER sweep across SNR → spectral efficiency comparison
This UG project (Part 1 of my bachelor's thesis work) laid the groundwork in MATLAB before extending the simulation to hardware-adjacent implementations on FPGA.
Outcomes
Measurable gains in low-SNR conditions
+20%
Spectral efficiency improvement
+30%
BER improvement at low SNR
OFDM → OTFS
Waveform transition studied
MATLAB
Simulation environment
The OTFS approach demonstrated a 20% improvement in spectral efficiency and a 30% improvement in BER performance under low-SNR scenarios — reinforcing why OTFS is being explored for mobile broadband and IoT use cases where reliability under mobility matters most.
Project details
Timeline
Role
Focus
Tools
Code