Integrating OTFS in Airplane-Aided Next-Generation Networking

TL;DR

This paper introduces an OTFS-based system leveraging high-altitude platforms for next-generation networks, demonstrating improved performance over OFDM in high-mobility scenarios with stable connectivity.

Contribution

It proposes an OTFS-enabled airplane-aided networking system with null steering beamforming, and provides a comprehensive performance comparison with OFDM under various conditions.

Findings

OTFS outperforms OFDM in BER and stability.

OTFS maintains performance across different altitudes and velocities.

Null steering beamforming enhances communication with terrestrial users.

Abstract

Next-generation networks explore the opportunistic assistance of airliner/high-altitude platforms (HAPs) in delivering high data rates for terrestrial networks to ensure consistent and reliable communication. When an airliner/HAP moves at very high speeds, its mobility has a substantial impact on ensuring seamless connectivity, stable signal strength, and reliable data transmission. Orthogonal time frequency space (OTFS) modulation has been shown to provide notable improvement in performance when handling Doppler effects during high-mobility situations. This paper presents an OTFS-based airplane-aided next-generation networking system. In the proposed system, the airliner/HAPs are equipped with a planar antenna array that applies null steering beamforming (NSB) at the transmitter for communication with terrestrial users. A comprehensive performance comparison between OTFS and orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is performed under varying airliner altitude, velocity, array dimension, and Rician factor conditions. The simulation results show that OTFS consistently outperforms OFDM, achieving a lower bit error rate (BER) and more stable performance across different airliner altitudes, velocities, array dimensions, and propagation environments.