An apparatus of user equipment (UE) includes processing circuitry coupled to a memory, where to configure the UE for DMRS processing in an NR network, the processing circuitry is to decode higher layer signaling, the higher layer signaling to indicate whether transform precoding is enabled and to indicate a modulation scheme for a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) if transform precoding is enabled. A set of low Peak-to-Average-Power-Ratio (PAPR) base sequences of length-6 is generated. A reference signal sequence is generated as a demodulation reference signal (DMRS) using the set of low-PAPR base sequences, based on the modulation scheme if transform precoding is enabled by the higher layer signaling, the modulation scheme being a π/2-binary phase-shift keying (BPSK) modulation scheme. Mapping of the DMRS to physical resources for transmission using the PUSCH is performed.