Off-grid Variational Bayesian Parameter Estimation for Fractional Delay-Doppler OTFS-ISAC

Abstract

This letter proposes an off-grid variational Bayesian (OVB) method for fractional delay-Doppler (DD) estimation in OTFS-based integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) systems. To enable off-grid parameter estimation, the OTFS channel is reformulated using separable delay and Doppler steering vectors, and the corresponding phase variables are modeled by von Mises distributions. Closed-form variational updates provide posterior statistics for identifying significant paths and pruning redundant candidates, enabling automatic path-number estimation. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed method achieves higher channel and parameter estimation accuracy than conventional fractional DD estimation approaches.