Multiuser Zak-OTFS on the Uplink with Superimposed Spread-Pilots

In this paper, we consider the uplink of a multiuser Zak-OTFS system comprising users with heterogeneous delay-Doppler (DD) periods/frame sizes.

Multiple access is achieved through time-frequency (TF) shifts that place the users in non-overlapping regions of the TF plane.

Closed-form expressions for the effective DD domain channel between each user and the base station are derived for sinc and Gaussian pulse shaping filters.

The inter-user interference (IUI) is shown to be negligible under the TF-shift-based multiple access, thereby decoupling the multiuser input-output relation (IOR) estimation problem into independent single-user estimation problems.

For IOR estimation, a superimposed spread-pilot framework is employed.

The spread-pilot sequence is obtained by applying FFT to a reshaped Zadoff-Chu sequence.

To mitigate the pilot-data interference introduced by the superimposed spread-pilot, a DD dictionary-based IOR estimation scheme that iterates between IOR estimation and data detection is employed.

Simulation results for a multiuser Zak-OTFS system demonstrate that the resulting IOR estimates achieve normalized mean-square error (NMSE) and bit error rate (BER) performances that closely match those of the corresponding single-user system.

Furthermore, for sinc pulse shaping, the superimposed spread-pilot frame achieves higher spectral-efficiency compared to embedded pilot frame across a wide range of inter-user power ratios.

For Gaussian pulse shaping, however, the embedded pilot frame achieves a higher spectral efficiency due to the combined effects of residual IUI and significant pilot-data interference in the case of superimposed spread-pilot.

The robustness of the estimation framework to variations in channel power-delay profile and maximum Doppler shift is also demonstrated.