Power Line Communication Link Research Articles

The Effect of Spread Spectrum Modulation on Power Line Communications

Interference in Power Line Communication (PLC) is examined in this paper. PLC is a wired communication technology that provides communication and data transmission over the existing electrical network. It uses the electrical wiring in buildings or the electrical grid to transmit data signals between devices, rather than using dedicated communication cables or wireless signals. Many applications employ PLC technologies, which have the benefit of leveraging existing power connections for both power and data transfer, reducing cost and complexity. These interactions may be observed in contemporary smart grids and automobile power networks, where lengthy cables, switching power supplies and communication links all work together but exacerbate Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) problems. This research examines the effects of spread spectrum methods used to reduce EMI from power converters on PLC systems. Spread Spectrum Modulation (SSM) and its three variants, Sine, Random and Sawtooth, are frequently employed to meet the requirements of electromagnetic compatibility, however, there are some repercussions that may be detrimental to the converter or the rest of the electrical network. These outcomes occur for various modulation algorithm settings and at various frequencies. Measurements are made utilising the Frame Error Rate (FER) value provided by the PLC link system to ascertain the interference produced by a Silicon Carbide (SiC)-based DC-DC converter in order to investigate these concerns and standardise an assessment approach. To examine the effect of SSM on reducing EMI in the frequency domain, the peak index of a CISPR-16 EMI receiver is used.

Topology-Based Machine Learning: Predicting Power Line Communication Quality in Smart Grids

Smart Grids (SG) envision the exchange of both power and data, enabling system and customers to generate and transfer energy in a more efficient and balanced way. Among the relevant communication technologies, we find Power-Line Communications (PLC), which allow for data transmission on the electrical cables used for power delivery. Despite the hostile medium, PLC offer reliability and data rates to support exchange of control traffic, smart metering and polling applications. The distribution portion of the power delivery network, which we focus on in this work, is the most topologically complex, which makes channel prediction complicated. We show how random realistic topologies can be generated and then used to train a Machine Learning (ML) algorithm to infer PLC link quality (based on channel response) based solely on topology descriptors.We eventually show how precisely the communication quality can be inferred from the SG topology through ML. In doing so, we also discuss how the ML approach offers the common ground between top-down and bottom-up approaches for network characterization and how it enables smart decision making in the SG.

PLC Physical Layer Link Identification with Imperfect Channel State Information

This paper proposes an accurate physical layer technique to uniquely identify the links of a power line communication network. First, the power line communications (PLC) multipath channel characterization is presented and detailed. Then, a multipath channel delay detection technique is introduced to provide an accurate physical layer identification (PL ID) for the considered PLC links. The accuracy and efficiency are tested by evaluating the successful path detection probability (SPDP) in a simulated scenario under both perfect and imperfect channel state information conditions. The results confirm the advantages of the proposed scheme. Indeed, for a common PLC noise power around 90 dBuV, the provided accuracy reaches ≈90%, while for a noise power below 80 dBuV, the accuracy plateaus at 100%. Overall, the low complexity of the proposed approach and its staggering performance results pave the way for further possible applications in both the PLC and the security domain.

A Cybertwin-Based 6G Cooperative IoE Communication Network: Secrecy Outage Analysis

The sixth-generation (6G) communication networks being highly data-intensive and enabled by the Internet of Everything (IoE) are envisaged to find applications in various domains including smart healthcare, smart industry, and gaming. In this article, a novel hybrid 6G-based cybertwin cooperative architecture is studied and an analytical framework for the secrecy outage analysis is presented. The base station (BS) considered utilizes nonorthogonal-multiple-access for content request transmission to the cybertwin host and the server with a direct communication link present between the BS and the server. A wireless link experiencing Nakagami- <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$m$</tex-math></inline-formula> fading is considered which is further assisted in the communication network by a wired link which is a power line communication link and experiences Rayleigh fading, for the communication between the cybertwin host and the server. Secrecy error probability expressions are derived for the cybertwin host and the server for the scenario when both the wireless and the wired links are available for communication and only the wireless link is available for communication. Furthermore, the presented analytical results are corroborated with simulation results which demonstrate the optimality of operating the wireless links at lower signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) values. It is observed that for the lower values of Nakagami fading parameter, better secrecy performance is observed with the usage of wired link along with the wireless link, and also the secrecy performance of the cybertwin host and the server is dependent on the system parameters like the fading parameter and the average SNR.

Performance Analysis of Dual-Hop Mixed Power Line Communication/Free-Space Optical Cooperative Systems

In this paper, we study a mixed cooperative communication system consisting of power line communication (PLC) and free-space optical communication (FSO) links, where the PLC link suffers from log-normal fading and is affected by both impulsive and background noises. Meanwhile, the FSO link undergoes Gamma-Gamma fading with both atmospheric turbulence and pointing errors. More specifically, we present closed-form expressions for the probability density function and the cumulative distribution function of the end-to-end signal-to-noise ratio of the proposed model. Consequently, the outage probability and the bit error rate (BER) performance are derived in terms of univariate Fox-H and bivariate Fox-H functions. Finally, the analytical results are verified using Monte Carlo simulations, providing useful insights into the capabilities of the proposed system.

Distributed Spectrum Sharing for Enterprise Powerline Communication Networks

As powerline communication (PLC) technology does not require dedicated cabling and network setup, it can be used to easily connect multitude of IoT devices deployed in enterprise environments for sensing and control related applications. IEEE has standardized the PLC protocol in IEEE 1901, also known as HomePlug AV (HPAV) which has been widely adopted in mainstream PLC devices. A key weakness of HPAV protocol is that it does not support spectrum sharing. Currently, each link in an HPAV PLC network operates over the whole available spectrum, and only one link can operate at any time within a single collision domain. In this work, through an extensive measurement study of HPAV PLCs in a real enterprise environment using commodity off-the-shelf (COTS) HPAV PLC devices, we discover that spectrum sharing can significantly benefit enterprise level PLC networks. To this end, we propose a distributed spectrum sharing technique for enterprise HPAV PLC networks, and show that fine-grained distributed spectrum sharing on top of current HPAV MAC protocols can significantly boost the aggregated and per-link throughput, by allowing multiple PLC links to communicate concurrently, while requiring only a few modifications to the existing HPAV devices and protocols.

Performance analysis of a cooperative D2D communication network with NOMA

The cooperative device-to-device (D2D) network employing non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) is expected to play an important role in the next-generation wireless networks. In this work, the authors derive outage probability expressions of a cooperative NOMA D2D network which employs decode-and-forward relaying. A wireless link experiencing Nakagami-m fading is considered which is further assisted in the communication network by a wired link which is a powerline communication link and experiences Rayleigh fading. The outage analysis, shown for both the strong user and the weak user, is derived assuming that at the receiver there is perfect successive interference cancellation. Employing power division NOMA, optimum value for the coefficient of power allocation is obtained corresponding to the minimum probability of outage of the strong user. Furthermore, a range of the NOMA power allocation coefficient is provided for the communication link at the weak user which is between the wireless and the powerline link. Symbol error probability expressions are also derived for the strong and the weak users for the scenario when: i) both the wireless and the wired links are available for communication and ii) only the wireless link is available for communication.

Proof of Concept of Vehicle to Infrastructure Power Line Communication Link for Tramway CCTV

In the Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) context, the issue of broadband connected trains presents a number of technical and economic problems. Such broadband links would be benefit for both passengers and security needs. Several technical solutions are available, in particular wireless ones like Wireless Access in Vehicular Environments (WAVE), Long Term Evolution (LTE) or 5G, but we explore here the feasibility of achieving this connectivity, dedicated to trams security application, via Broadband over Power Lines (BPL) technology through tramway power supply cables. In this paper we investigate the possibility of connecting a tramway to its security command post in order to transmit real time video streams through BPL. The Proof of Concept (PoC) is presented through the characterization of the channel, the performances of the physical layer, the measurement of available Round Trip Times (RTTs) and bit rates. Then we demonstrate in real-world a streaming of Closed Circuit TV (CCTV) from two tramway embedded cameras to the security command post. The PoC was carried out on the tramway infrastructure of the city of Lyon. Through this PoC, we have demonstrated the possibility of equipping a complete commercial line with BPL guaranteeing a bit rate of 60 Mega-Bytes per Second (Mb/S) and presented a deployment projection of the BPL solution for dynamic context (moving tram), based on Power-Line Communication (PLC).

Performance Analysis of a Mixed Cooperative PLC–VLC System for Indoor Communication Systems

In this paper we propose a dual-hop mixed cooperative power line communication (PLC)–visible light communication (VLC) system, in which the VLC system is linked to the PLC backhaul link with the assistance of a decode and forward relay. The performance of the PLC link is evaluated under the effect of log-normal fading, and the link is presumed to be affected by both additive background and impulsive noises. The VLC link's channel characteristics are taken as a function of the position of the end users. The proposed study provides novel closed-form expressions of various statistics of the equivalent end-to-end signal-to-noise ratio of the considered system. Taking these derived entities into account, we also evaluate closed-form expressions of various performance metrics of the proposed system.

Performance analysis of coordinate interleaved PLC system with Rayleigh channel gain under Nakagami‐ m additive noise

Power line communication (PLC) is an emerging field of communication that makes use of the existing power line infrastructure for the transmission of data and power. However, the presence of additive and multiplicative power line noises deteriorate the performance of a PLC system. Background and impulsive noises are the two main categories of additive noise, whereas channel gain accounts for the multiplicative noise. In this study, the authors propose coordinate interleaving (CI) technique and investigate its performance for a PLC system under the combined effect of Nakagami-m additive background noise and Rayleigh channel gain. They assume perfect channel state information at the transmitter and receiver of the PLC link. By interleaving the coordinates of the symbols sent over different channel realisations, CI results in significant improvement in the performance of a PLC system. Both the simulated and analytical results shown in this study reveal the effectiveness of the proposed technique in achieving better performance.

Two-Stage Single-Relay Channel Model for In-Home Broadband PLC Systems

This paper discusses the two-stage single-relay channel model for in-home broadband power line communication links with up to two hops. This channel model consists of the concatenation of two single-relay channels that can result in eight configurations; however, only five of them are analyzed in this work since they cover up to one relay availability. In this context, a discussion addressing both amplify-and-forward and decode-and-forward cooperative protocols at relay node and maximal ratio combining at destination node is carried out. As the power line channels are frequency selective, the attenuation profile increases along with both distance and frequency, and the additive noise is colored, we discuss achievable data rate analyses using a data set covering the frequency band from 1.7 to 100 MHz, under sum power constraint. Based on the attained results, we state that the two-stage single-relay channel model is the best option for in-home broadband power line communication systems when the source-to-destination link is severely degraded (e.g., high signal attenuation and/or high-power noise presence), while the two-hop channel model is more appropriate when the channel degradation is not severe. Moreover, we show that the single-relay channel model may be remarkably outperformed by the two-stage single-relay channel model.

A Novel Precoding and Impulsive Noise Mitigation Scheme for MIMO Power Line Communication Systems

Power line communications (PLCs) enable new and flexible networking functions in smart grids. However, due to the high attenuation and interference, it is a great challenge for PLC to achieve reliable and high data rate transmissions. Thus, we propose a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) architecture to improve the reliability and data rate for PLC networks. In viewing the data rate requirements of in-home PLC network systems, we develop a precoding scheme to maximize the system throughput. In harmonizing to the proposed precoding scheme, the closed-form of the sum data rate of the PLC-MIMO channel is derived. To improve the communication reliability, we propose a partial transmission sequence (PTS) based algorithm to mitigate the noise in PLC channels. The closed-form of the symbol error rate (SER) is derived according to the probability density function of the impulsive noise in PLC channels. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed precoding scheme achieves a better throughput when compared to the conventional precoding schemes. Furthermore, the PTS-based noise mitigation algorithm significantly improves the SER performance of PLC links.

Performance Analysis of a Co-Operative PLC/VLC System with Multiple Access Points for Indoor Broadcasting

In this study, the authors investigate a mixed co-operative power line communication (PLC)/visible light communication (VLC) system for indoor broadcasting communication systems. The PLC system acts as a backhaul link to the VLC link. The information from the PLC link is transmitted to the VLC link with the assistance of a relay employing decode and forward (DF) protocol. The PLC system is subjected to log normally distributed fading and additive noises. The VLC link consists of multiple access points (APs) which serve the end users. The channel characteristics of the VLC systems are dependent on the randomly distributed user positions. The selection combining (SC) diversity combining technique is employed to select that access point which offers the maximum instantaneous signal to noise ratio (SNR) to the end user at the VLC end. We present the closed form expressions of the cumulative distribution function (CDF) and probability density function (PDF) of the equivalent end to end SNR of the proposed mixed powerline/visible light communication system. Furthermore, the performance of the system is analyzed in terms of various performance metrics such as outage probability and bit error rate (BER).

Modelling and comparison for low‐voltage broadband power line noise using LS‐SVM and wavelet neural networks

This study is to construct the autoregressive models for the low-voltage broadband power line communication (PLC) channel noise by two machine learning algorithms, namely the least square support vector machine (LS-SVM) and wavelet neural networks. The main work is to compare the two classical machine learning algorithms and also compare them with the traditional Markovian–Gaussian method. To verify their availability and ability to adapt to the time-variant PLC channels, noise measurements for low-voltage PLC channels in indoor and outdoor scenarios are carried out. The accuracy and efficiency of the two models are studied and compared based on a large amount of measurement data. The results show that both of the noise models can simulate and adapt to the time-variant low-voltage broadband PLC channels very well. The LS-SVM model is found to have shorter simulation time and higher accuracy. Moreover, the proposed noise models are also compared with the traditional Markovian–Gaussian model. The results show that both the proposed noise models exhibit higher accuracy and lower complexity, especially that the LS-SVM is more appropriate to be applied as a noise generator in PLC link and network level simulations instead of the current Markovian–Gaussian model.

Data Logging and Control of a Remote Inverter Using LoRa and Power Line Communication

For decades, the power system was highly centralized. With the growing integration of distributed generations into the system, there is a necessity for bi-directional communication methods to monitor and control the remote assets. The primary objective of this paper is to develop a communication link for monitoring and controlling a grid-connected inverter in a remote location. Furthermore, the paper presents developments that have been incorporated to improve the communication link. The literature survey indicates that LoRa is superior compared to other technologies, but has some security and reliability issues. This paper also presents an encryption algorithm to improve the security of the LoRa link. Local data storage added to the system before transmitting data increases the system reliability. A display at the transmission end is added to improve the user-friendliness of the communication link. A Powerline Communication link is parallelly added to the LoRa link to improve the reliability. Finally, tests are conducted with an actual inverter and the results are presented. The tests show that the developed communication link has improved security and reliability, while its open nature makes it highly scalable and adaptable for employment in other smart grid applications.

Simulation of Power Line Communication Slient Node Problem Using OPNET

The Information & Communication Technology (ICT) and the Internet of Things (IoT) have become the major issues in Republic of Korea recently. While RS-232, Zigbee, and WiFi-related technologies are used in the ICT-based systems, we focus on the Power Line Communication (PLC) in this paper. By carrying out OPNET simulations, weve implemented the PLC Router Node Model, PLC Terminal Node Model, PLC Link Model, and PLC Palette Model and executed the simulations arranging 20 holds within the range of 400m (20m apart). As a result, we confirmed that the slient node problem had occurred at the point of 200m-2000m (as of 2016) distance preventing further communications. However, the control group, by contrast, was able to carry out the communications by installing a router. We expect that this paper will contribute to the development of a foundation technology which will saves costs by performing the simulation prior to building actual large-scale ICT Complex in the future work.

Reliability and survivability analysis of narrowband power-line communication links in low-voltage building network applications

Recent developments in power-line communication (PLC) based power automation and security systems are transforming into smart automation for low-voltage building network applications. This paper presents reliability and survivability analysis of G3-PLC compliant modems that aims to develop working pilot models for security as well as for complete NIT Kurukshetra campus buildings automation. In order to verify the proposed hardware design and implementation of G3-PLC system along with necessary theoretical background. Development of G3-PLC based virtual instrument to run-time couple local/remote monitoring and control of the building has been major outcome. The presented proposed design with open source platform, which is re-usable with requirement based customization, simple, user-friendly and validated through implementation. The system based on this logic can also be used for smart metrology meter (SMM) applications (i.e. metrological functions and real-time monitoring functions) and an effective tool for connecting the global consumers through energy efficiency and awareness corridor.

Measurement and simulation framework for throughput evaluation of narrowband power line communication links in low-voltage grids

High-data-rate narrowband Power Line Communication (PLC) is a prominent candidate for smart grid communications in the low-voltage grid at low operational costs. However, the power-line channel is fairly harsh in terms of time-variance, frequency selectivity, and observable impulsive and narrowband noise sources. These unpredictable phenomena motivate selective measurement campaigns in addition to common channel modeling. While previously published measurement studies were fairly limited in duration, we report on a measurement setup for capturing power-line channels over weeks and show measurement results highlighting day-dependent channel effects on selected communication links. Furthermore, previous performance simulations are typically based on simplified channel models and limited in terms of the detail level at the physical layer or lack a consideration of higher-layer protocol overhead. We present a novel simulation methodology which is based on detailed physical-layer simulations exploiting measured, time-varying channel data, and incorporates protocol overhead models for transport-layer throughput estimation. Exemplary simulation results include the newest, commercially available narrowband PLC standards in their latest version, that is ITU-T G.9903 (G3) and G.9904 (PRIME), as well as IEEE 1901.2.

Optimal Signaling Scheme and Capacity Limit of PLC Under Bernoulli-Gaussian Impulsive Noise

This paper studies the optimal signaling scheme and capacity of the Bernoulli–Gaussian impulsive noise channel to shed new light on the impact of impulsive noise on spectral efficiency of power-line communications systems. First, by focusing on the practically typical case with impulse power that is much higher than signal power, we develop a tight approximation to the differential entropy of Bernoulli–Gaussian noise. Closed-form tight lower and upper bounds on the capacity are then derived. By comparing these bounds, it is demonstrated that the capacity decreases with an increasing impulse occurrence rate and the Gaussian signaling scheme is nearly optimal. We then focus on the case with an impulse power lower than signal power to develop tight lower and upper bounds. We subsequently show that the Gaussian signaling can approach the capacity in this region as well. In addition, channel erasure is shown to be very effective for the impulsive noise channel when impulse power is higher than signal power, but it introduces rate loss when impulse power is sufficiently lower than signal power. Illustrative simulation results confirm the analytical derivations and show their applications to estimate the maximum achievable rate of a power-line communication link with practical parameters.

Immunity to Conducted Noise of Data Transmission Along DC Power Lines Involving Twisted-Wire Pairs Above Ground

In this paper, immunity of differential dc power lines, recently considered as the physical layer for power line communications (PLC) onboard spacecraft, is assessed from the theoretical viewpoint. The analysis focuses on conducted immunity of the PLC channel to noise generated by the terminal units of the power line (PL). Particularly, multiconductor transmission line theory and modal decomposition are used to characterize the susceptibility of the PLC link to common mode and differential mode (DM) components of the conducted noise. Closed-form expressions for signal and noise contributions at the receiving modem are derived and used to develop design rules for the involved coupling/decoupling networks. By combining the spectral properties of the PL noise with the propagation properties of the link, it is shown that DM signaling, besides assuring a nearly flat channel frequency response, results to be more immune to the PL noise. Finally, the role that possible unbalance of the power units may play on the system conducted immunity and radiation properties is discussed by deriving analytical expressions of the longitudinal and transversal conversion loss associated with the PL terminal networks.