Hybrid CNN-Transformer Based Sparse Channel Prediction for High-Mobility OTFS Systems

High-mobility scenarios in next-generation wireless networks, such as those involving vehicular communications, require ultra-reliable and low-latency communications (URLLC). However, rapidly time-varying channels pose significant challenges to traditional OFDM-based systems due to the Doppler effect and channel aging. Orthogonal time frequency space (OTFS) modulation offers resilience by representing channels in the quasi-static delay-Doppler (DD) domain. This letter proposes a novel channel prediction framework for OTFS systems using a hybrid convolutional neural network and transformer (CNN-Transformer) architecture. The CNN extracts compact features that exploit the DD-domain sparsity of the channel matrices, while the transformer models temporal dependencies with causal masking for consistency. Simulation experiments under extreme $500$ \si{km/h} mobility conditions demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms state-of-the-art baselines, reducing the root mean square error and mean absolute error by $12.2\%$ and $9.4\%$, respectively. These results demonstrate the effectiveness of DD-domain representations and the proposed model in accurately predicting channels in high-mobility scenarios, thereby supporting the stringent URLLC requirements in future wireless systems.