An Adaptive MDS-Coded OFDM Waveform for Low-Altitude ISAC: Design and Optimization

The low-altitude economy (LAE), an emerging economic paradigm encompassing various flight activities in low-altitude airspace, has attracted widespread attention from academia and industry due to its appealing economic and social benefits. In this paper, we investigate the design of integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) waveforms for LAE applications. Specifically, we propose an adaptive ISAC waveform, which integrates the maximum distance separable (MDS) code and index modulation (IM) into the orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) waveform, namely A-MDS-OFDM-IM. This design combines the hybrid benefits of MDS code, IM, and OFDM techniques, i.e., the error detection capability of MDS code, the high spectral efficiency (SE) of IM, and the high sensing resolution of OFDM, thereby enabling robust communication and sensing. A comprehensive performance analysis of A-MDS-OFDM-IM is provided, including its bit error rate (BER), peak-to-sidelobe level (PSL), and peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR). Moreover, to address the high PAPR issue of A-MDS-OFDM-IM, we develop an adaptive design criterion based on the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM), which is capable of jointly optimizing the communication, sensing, and PAPR performance of the proposed system. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed waveform achieves better BER performance than conventional OFDM-based waveforms under a non-ideal high power amplifier (HPA), owing to its low-PAPR characteristic. Additionally, the proposed waveform ensures robust sensing with satisfactory PSL performance, making it a promising ISAC waveform for LAE applications.