Methods, apparatuses, and systems described herein generally relate to a reference signal generation and mapping. For example, a method comprises determining a first set of antenna ports for a demodulation reference signal (DM-RS) transmission; determining, based on the first set, a frequency index associated with four adjacent resource elements, wherein the four adjacent resource elements correspond to two adjacent symbols in a time axis and to two adjacent subcarriers in a frequency axis; generating, based on a first orthogonal cover code and a second orthogonal cover code, a DM-RS associated with the first set of antenna ports; and transmitting, via a mapping to the four adjacent resource elements, the DM-RS associated with the first set of antenna ports.