Progressive Inter-Path Interference Cancellation Algorithm for Channel Estimation Using Orthogonal Time–Frequency Space

Fractional delay-Doppler (DD) channel estimation in orthogonal time–frequency space (OTFS) systems poses a significant challenge considering the severe effects of inter-path interference (IPI). To this end, several algorithms have been extensively explored in the literature for accurate low-complexity channel estimation in both integer and fractional DD scenarios. In this work, we develop a variant of the state-of-the-art delay-Doppler inter-path interference cancellation (DDIPIC) algorithm that progressively cancels the IPI as estimates are obtained. The key advantage of the proposed approach is that it requires only a final refinement procedure reducing the complexity of the algorithm. Specifically, the time difference in latency between the proposed approach and the DDIPIC algorithm is almost proportional to the square of the number of estimated paths. Numerical results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms the other channel estimation schemes achieving lower normalized mean square error (NMSE) and bit error rate (BER).