Power Line Communication Networks Research Articles

Hybrid Wi-Fi and PLC network for efficient e-health communication in hospitals: a prototype

E-health is being adapted in modern hospitals as a significant addition to the existing healthcare services. To this end, modern hospitals urgently require a mobile, high-capacity, secure, and cost-effective communication infrastructure. In this paper, we explore potential applications of a hybrid broadband power line communication (PLC) and Wi-Fi in an indoor hospital scenario. It utilizes the existing power line cables and Wi-Fi plug-and-play devices for indoor broadband communication. Broadband power line (BPL) adaptors with Wi-Fi outputs are used to build an access network in hospitals, particularly in areas where the wireless router signal is poor. The Tenda PH10 AV1,000 AC Wi-Fi power line adapter is a set of BPL adapters that offer operational bandwidth of up to 1,000 Mbps. These adapters are based on the HomePlug AV2 protocol and can provide a data rate up to 200 Mbps on the physical layer. An experiment using the PLC Wi-Fi kit is carried out to show that a Wi-Fi and PLC hybrid network is the best candidate to provide wide range of practical applications in a hospital including, but not limited to, telemedicine, electronic medical records, early-stage disease diagnosis, health management, real-time monitoring, and remote surgeries.

Validation of Machine Learning-Aided and Power Line Communication-Based Cable Monitoring Using Measurement Data.

The implementation of power line communications (PLC) in smart electricity grids provides us with exciting opportunities for real-time cable monitoring. In particular, effective fault classification and estimation methods employing machine learning (ML) models have been proposed in the recent past. Often, the research works presenting PLC for ML-aided cable diagnostics are based on the study of synthetically generated channel data. In this work, we validate ML-aided diagnostics by integrating measured channels. Specifically, we consider the concatenation of clustering as a data pre-processing procedure and principal component analysis (PCA)-based dimension reduction for cable anomaly detection. Clustering and PCA are trained with measurement data when the PLC network is working under healthy conditions. A possible cable anomaly is then identified from the analysis of the PCA reconstruction error for a test sample. For the numerical evaluation of our scheme, we apply an experimental setup in which we introduce degradations to power cables. Our results show that the proposed anomaly detector is able to identify a cable degradation with high detection accuracy and low false alarm rate.

Modeling of Burst Impulse Noise Errors in an In-House M-QAM-Based Power Line Communications Channel Using the Fritchman-Markov Model.

Within the power line communication (PLC) network, a large number of electronic devices are connected, and environmental factors can cause unusual behavior, leading to high-amplitude impulse noise in the received signal and, as a result, packet losses and burst errors in the data that are sent. Burst errors make it difficult to send data over power line channels efficiently and accurately. Analyzing error patterns with intelligent techniques can provide valuable insights into data transmission efficiency, enhance transmission quality, and optimize PLC systems. This research proposes a three-state Fritchman-Markov chain-based power line communication error model and develops a software-defined PLC system. The goal is to analyze and model the system's statistical error process. The PLC system's fundamental error pattern is deduced from the transmission and reception of data on our software-defined (SD) PLC platform. The system is designed with multi-state quadrature amplitude modulation (M-QAM) data transmission and reception techniques. An error pattern consisting of 50,000 bits is obtained by comparing the bits transmitted with those received using the in-house M-QAM-based PLC transceiver system. The error characteristics of the newly developed M-QAM SD-PLC system are precisely modeled using the error model. Examining the burst error statistics of the reference error sequences of the SD-PLC system and the three-state Fritchman-Markov error model reveals striking similarities. According to the results, the error model accurately represents the error characteristics of the developed M-QAM SD-PLC system. The proposed three-state Fritchman-Markov chain-based error model for PLC has the potential to provide a comprehensive understanding of the error process in PLC. Additionally, it can assess error control strategies with less computational complexity and a shorter simulation time.

In-band full-duplex MIMO PLC systems for relaying networks

In Power Line Communications (PLC), there are regulatory masks that restrict the transmit power spectral density for electromagnetic compatibility reasons, which creates coverage issues despite the not too long distances. Hence, PLC networks often employ repeaters/relays, especially in smart grid neighborhood area networks. Even in broadband indoor PLC systems that offer a notable data rate, relaying may pave the way to new applications like being the backbone for wireless technologies in a cost-effective manner to support the Internet-of-things paradigm. In this paper, we study Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) PLC systems that incorporate in-band full-duplex functionality in relaying networks. We present several MIMO configurations that allow end-to-end half-duplex or full-duplex operations and analyze the achievable performance with state-of-the-art PLC systems. To reach this analysis, we get channel realizations from random network layouts for indoor and outdoor scenarios. We adopt realistic MIMO channel and noise models and consider transmission techniques according to PLC standards. The concepts discussed in this work can be useful in the design of future PLC relay-aided networks for different applications that look for a coverage extension and/or throughput: smart grids with enhanced communications in outdoor scenarios, and “last meter” systems for high-speed connections everywhere in indoor ones.

Implementation of IPv6 using 6RD Method on Power Line Communication Network

The development of computer network technology is rapidly advancing in response to society's increasing demand for network services. Currently, the most widely used network protocol is IPv4, but it has some limitations. To address these limitations, a new network protocol, IPv6, has been developed. More and more new network devices are using IPv6 as their IP address, while many existing technologies and internet devices still use IPv4. Therefore, a mechanism is required to transition from IPv4 to IPv6. The 6RD tunneling method is used in Power Line Communication networks to connect two or more network devices using electrical wiring as a data transmission medium. The Power Line is equipped with a charger for a laptop and a drill, creating a load to test the performance of the Quality of Service(QoS) with the throughput parameter. The measured Rerate throughput upload was 11800 Kbit/s without any additional electrical load, 9377.8 Kbit/s with a laptop charger as an additional load, and 6082.2 Kbit/s with a drill as an additional load. The Rerate throughput download was 8098.8 Kbit/s without any additional electrical load, 7782.8 Kbit/s with a laptop charger as an additional load, and 5996 Kbit/s with a laptop charger and a drill as additional loads. With this transition mechanism, IPv4 can communicate with IPv6, allowing for more efficient network communication.

Lightweight multi-hop routing protocol for resource optimisation in edge computing networks

Data transmission over power line communication (PLC) infrastructure will proliferate lightweight Internet of Things (IoT) nodes in 5G and 6G networks. Consequently, a corresponding lightweight multi-hop routing protocol (LMRP) with reduced path loss and computational complexities will be required at the edges of PLC networks to connect the cloud sinks. Using a multi-layered system architecture, we present an LMRP for optimal routing and highlight the components of a smart PLC network comprising edge power pool orchestration, edge layer service provisioning, fog latency layer, and cloud resilient backbone. The LMRP reduces path loss and node failure states at the edge while optimising throughputs, minimum cost flow, and signal stability. A multi-hop deterministic testbed is designed and applied in three different locations to estimate path loss leveraging TelosB IoT node, Raspberry Pi (RPI) with NesC, and Java scripted logger application. Three different testbeds of varying path loss characteristics at the Federal University of Technology Owerri (FUTO) are used while the analysis was completed at Manchester Metropolitan University engineering LAB. The result of PL mitigation in Location 1 (sonic FUTO) shows 33.89%, 33.25%, and 32.77% with genetic algorithm (GA), particle swarm optimisation (PSO), and the proposed LMRP, respectively. In Location 2 (Old SEET Complex, FUTO), the PL obtained are 33.81%, 33.57%, and 32.62%, while Location 3 (New SEET Complex, FUTO) yields 33.65%, 33.41%, and 32.74% in PL mitigation for GA, PSO, and LMRP, respectively. Despite improved PL mitigation, the results also show that the proposed scheme offers a lightweight routing performance of at least 76.30% compared to similar schemes.

A Stochastic Model for Performance Evaluation of Hybrid Network Architectures of IoT with an Improved Design

Hybridisation of networks is a trend that will continue to evolve for more efficient communication solutions. Hybrid power line communication (PLC) and wireless networks deployed for the Internet of Things (IoT) applications have improved the efficiency of low-power and lossy networks (LLNs). State-of-the-art solutions on hybrid networks are mainly application specific and does not provide a mathematical model to evaluate the network performance. Furthermore, the parallel PLC and wireless networks result in more power consumption due to the additional circuitry required to support and switch between two networks. There is a need for a generalized study on hybrid network architectures. A mathematical model must be developed to evaluate the performance of hybrid networks. Unlike parallel PLC and wireless networks, some intermediate solutions must be proposed that can offer the benefits of wired and wireless networks without increasing power consumption and circuit complexity. The paper presents a generalized study on hybrid network architectures. A hybrid network has been proposed that can offer the benefits of wired and wireless networks in the best possible way. A novel Markov-based stochastic model has been developed to evaluate the reliability of hybrid network designs. The analytical results obtained from Continuous Time Markov Chains (CTMC) have been validated by simulation using MATLAB. Spectral and energy efficiency have been evaluated for the hybrid designs along with a trade-off analysis. The proposed hybrid network (with 50% jump nodes being hybridized) is 33.53% more reliable for data transmission than parallel wired and wireless networks after 100 hours of operation.

Cooperative Secrecy Techniques for Improving Physical Layer Security in NOMA-Based PLC Networks

Power Line Communication (PLC) can achieve noticeable savings in infrastructure deployment time and cost, where it uses the existing power lines for data transmission. Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA), is a promising technique that can accommodate multiple users via non-orthogonal resource allocation and so, it can notably improve spectral efficiency and reduce the electromagnetic compatibility of PLC networks. Data privacy is of crucial importance in PLC design due to its broadcasting nature. Therefore, this paper presents several cooperative secrecy techniques for improving physical layer security in NOMA-based PLC networks considering two different security constraints, which are signal eavesdroppers and multiple cooperative eavesdroppers. The secrecy performance is measured in terms of two performance metrics: ergodic secrecy capacity (ESC) and secrecy outage probability (SOP). Monte Carlo simulation results validate the accuracy of the analytical model and derivations.

Active noise control method of power communication signal based on BP neural network

In the power line communication network, the electrical node switch connected to the Power Line Communication network will affect the impedance, noise and signal attenuation of the network. The connection change between the network nodes will lead to the change of the topology structure. This paper proposes a new type of automatic modulation pattern recognition system assisted by blind channel recognition based on a convolutional neural network, which is composed of two convolutional neural networks with different architectures, and successfully improves the recognition accuracy of the traditional automatic modulation pattern recognition system. The Signal to Noise Ratio recognition rate of the proposed blind channel recognition assisted Adaptive Multi-Rate system is as high as 99 %, which is more than 5 % higher than that of other comparison methods. After several iterations, the accuracy and loss function of the model studied in this paper are still at a stable level. The intelligent recognition technology of blind signals proposed in this paper can effectively improve the interference problem of communication signals in power system and has a promotion effect in other communication systems, which can achieve higher technical application value.

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.

Adaptive resource management for cognitive power line communication system

The authors investigate the adaptive resource allocation problem for cognitive power line communication system. The dynamic optimisation model is employed to maximise the energy-aware network utility, which is defined as the difference of the weighted network throughput and the power consumption. Then, the authors decompose the stochastic optimisation into a traffic management subproblem and a joint subchannel and power allocation subproblem. Since the joint subchannel and power allocation subproblem is a mixed integer non-linear optimisation, a continuity relaxation and Lagrange dual method is proposed to obtain the optimal solution of the mixed integer non-linear optimisation subproblem. After that, the authors develop an adaptive power line communication resource allocation algorithm to cope with the power line communication network dynamics only according to the current network state information. Finally, we derive a trade-off mechanism between network utility and network delay, in which the network delay is proportional to the control parameter V and the network utility is proportional to the parameter 1 / V $1/V$ . Simulation results not only show the effectiveness but also verify the theoretical analysis of our proposed algorithm.

A Comparative Study of Power Line Communication Networks With and Without Buffer

Power line communication (PLC) has recently been receiving widespread attention due to its applications in the smart grid. We present a comparative study on the call-level performance of PLC networks with and without buffer through queueing theory. The PLC network model consists of a base station (BS) and a number of subscriber stations that are interconnected with each other and with the BS via power lines. The power line transmission channels are subject to failure during service due to disturbance. A two-dimensional Markov process is used for the modeling. Performance comparison is presented through theoretic analysis and numerical results.

A Preamble-Based MAC Mechanism in Ad-Hoc Network

In this paper, we propose a preamble-based medium access control (P-MAC) mechanism in Ad-Hoc network. Different from traditional carrier sense multiple access (CSMA) in Ad-Hoc network, P-MAC uses a much shorter preamble to establish the network. First, we propose the P-MAC mechanism to shorten the time of establishing the Ad-Hoc network. Based on the P-MAC, we propose a more efficient way to maintain the network. Next, focusing on the power line communication (PLC) network which is a kind of Ad-Hoc network, we propose a frequency division power line communication (FD-PLC) network architecture to obtain the best communication frequency. To obtain the best frequency, i.e., highest signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), we design the frequency sweeping mechanism which can determine the frequency of uplink and downlink communication before the transmitter and receiver communicate. Due to the large-scale networks in industry, P-MAC can be exploited to speed up the establishment of the Ad-Hoc PLC network. Finally, we compare our mechanism with CSMA. Numerical results indicate that our strategy greatly shortens the time of establishing the Ad-Hoc network.

Physical-Layer Secret Key Generation in Power Line Communication Networks

Due to the inherent broadcast nature, power line communication (PLC) is vulnerable to eavesdropping. Traditionally, the secret keys are generated/distributed by pre-shared keys, adaptive tone mapping, or asymmetric encryption algorithm. All of these methods face problems such as high computational complexity, high cost, or less security. To solve the problem, a physical layer security (PLS)-based secret key generation (SKG) scheme aiming at the typical in-home broadband PLC network is proposed in this paper. However, the slowly time-varying characteristic and the serious noise interference in PLC channels will degrade the performance of the PLS-based SKG scheme. To break through the limitation of the randomness of PLC channels, two-way random signals are introduced. To make the SKG system more resistant to noise, the channel frequency response-based adaptive quantization (CFR-AQ) algorithm is designed, in which the amplitude threshold and the quantization level are adaptive to the noise power and the target key disagreement rate (KDR) to maximize the key generation rate (KGR). The performance is analyzed in two scenarios: single eavesdropper and multiple eavesdroppers. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed scheme has a good overall performance in terms of KDR, KGR, and security with a lower complexity in the presence of single or multiple non-collusive eavesdroppers, and it can be regarded as an alternative solution to generate secret keys in PLC networks.

Information Fusion Method of Power Internet of Things Based on Low-Voltage Power Line and Micro-Power Wireless Communication

In order to improve the coverage and reliability of the information perception layer of the power Internet of things, a method of constructing a cross layer fusion network of low-voltage power line and micro-power wireless communication (CPW) is proposed. Firstly, a unified medium access control (MAC) layer model of CPW is established to provide basic support for realizing the integration of CPW network layers; then an improved ant colony algorithm combining Brownian motion and local convergence times control is proposed to complete the networking process of CPW; Distribute the sub-service flow of CPW, and propose the bit error rate requirement factor in the service distribution, and accomplish the cross-layer integration of low-voltage power line and micro-power wireless communication network. The simulation results show that the communication link service quality of the cross-layer fusion network is better than that of the power line and wireless dual-mode or cascaded communication networks. The communication efficiency of CPW is improved to 398.20kbits/s. The coverage of the power line and wireless communication fusion network can be expanded by setting corresponding bit error rate demand factors according to different services. It takes into account the balance of communication link quality and network load.

Development of an in-vehicle power line communication network with in-situ instrumented smart cells

Instrumented cells, equipped with miniature sensors, are proposed to aid the next stage of electrification in the automotive and aerospace industries. To optimize the energy density available within a lithium ion (li-ion) pack we demonstrate how a power line communication (PLC) network can be formed at an individual cell level. This reduces the need for complex communication cables within a vehicle wiring loom.Here we show a unique prototype smart cell (instrumented cell equipped with interface circuitry and processing capability) can be connected via a PLC network, to enable monitoring of vital parameters (temperature, voltage, current), regardless of cell state of charge (2.5 V to 4.2 V DC operating voltage). In this proof-of-concept study, we show the reliable system (0 errors detected over ∼24 hr experiment, acquired data (logged at 10 Hz) from cells (in a parallel configuration), and comparative data for cell internal and external temperature was recorded. During a prolonged discharge (1C, 5A discharge) a peak core temperature >3 °C hotter than surface temperature was observed, highlighting the need to understand cell operation in cooling system design.

Web-Based Toolkit for Performance Simulation and Analysis of Power Line Communication Networks

AMIs (Advanced Metering Infrastructures) present an important role in Smart City environments, especially from the point of view of distribution and customers, offering control and monitoring capabilities. The use of PLC (Power Line Communication) technology offers a wide range of advantages in AMI, including not needing to deploy an additional communication infrastructure. However, the electrical network was not initially designed for communications, as these networks pose problems depending on the connected loads, such as network impedance variation, frequency selectivity or noise. For this reason, the use of simulators is proposed to facilitate the deployments based on PLC networks, and analysis and diagnosis tools for the identification of problems in operating networks are also required. This paper presents a toolkit for evaluating and analyzing the performance of PLC networks. This toolkit is composed of SimPRIME, a simulator for the evaluation of NB-PLC PRIME (PoweR line Intelligent Metering Evolution) networks’ performance; SimBPL, a simulator for the evaluation of MV-BPL (Broadband Power Line over Medium Voltage) cells’ performance; and PRIME Analytics, a forensics tool that allows diagnosis of communication problems in PRIME operational networks based on traffic traces. The toolkit has been developed throughout several research projects in close collaboration with DSOs (Distribution System Operators) and equipment manufacturers, so they provide solutions to actual problems of these industry key players and have been adapted to facilitate their use. As a result, the tools are accessible through web applications to increase their usability, portability, and scalability. These applications represent the first steps in offering PLC simulation and analysis as a service that could benefit the research community, academia, and industry.

A Channel Selection Algorithm of Power Line Communication Network Base on Double-layer Cascade Artificial Neural Network

A crucial issue in Power Line Communication (PLC) networks is how to improve the performance of power line channel in physical layer. In this paper, a multiple input multiple output (MIMO) PLC channel selection algorithm based on a double-layer cascaded artificial neural network model is proposed. After the model is trained, the best channel combination can be selected directly through the channel estimation information. The results show that compared with the communication system without channel selection, the model can improve the channel by 2-3dB, the probability of selecting the best channel is 95.02%, and the training has fast convergence speed and small amount of calculation.

Opportunistic DF-AF Selection Relaying in Hybrid Wireless and Power Line Communication for Indoor IoT Networks

This manuscript investigates the system performance of hybrid wireless and power line communication networks for indoor Internet of Things applications. Differentiating itself from the existing literature, the performance of the direct link and dual-hop energy harvesting relay-aided links is analyzed under the condition of indoor fading modeled by log-normal distribution. Moreover, the manuscript presents the analytical expressions of the successful transmission probability of the deployed opportunistic decode-and-forward and amplify-and-forward relay selection scheme, and validates them with Monte Carlo simulations. Moreover, the impact of different system parameters on the successful transmission probability is revealed. For the considered hybrid system, in general, the opportunistic decode-and-forward relaying scheme outperforms the opportunistic amplify-and-forward relaying scheme. As importantly, increasing the source to relay distance and power splitting ratio over certain limits significantly deteriorates the system performance, indicated by the decrease in the successful transmission probability.

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.