A Physical Layer Model for G3-PLC Networks Simulation

This work presents a model of the G3-PLC physical (PHY) layer tailored for network simulations. It allows simulating frequency selective channels with non-stationary colored noise. Collisions with other frames are modeled taking into account the length and the power of the interfering frames. Frame errors are estimated using the effective signal-to-interference-and-noise ratio mapping (ESM) function. The proposed PHY layer has been integrated into a distributed event-based simulator developed by Microchip. The layer 2+ stack of the simulator uses the same code that actual Microchip G3-PLC devices. Validation has been accomplished by comparing its results to a test network deployed in the laboratory. The latter consists of a coordinator and one hundred meters distributed in 5 levels. Faster-than-real-time simulations and an excellent agreement between the simulated and the measured performance indicators at the application layer have been obtained.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

State-of-the-art in Power Line Communications: from the Applications to the Medium

In recent decades, power line communication has attracted considerable attention from the research community and industry, as well as from regulatory and standardization bodies. In this article we provide an overview of both narrowband and broadband systems, covering potential applications, regulatory and standardization efforts and recent research advancements in channel characterization, physical layer performance, medium access and higher layer specifications and evaluations. We also identify areas of current and further study that will enable the continued success of power line communication technology.Comment: 19 pages, 12 figures. Accepted for publication, IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications. Special Issue on Power Line Communications and its Integration with the Networking Ecosystem. 201

Power Line Communication Technologies: Modeling and Simulation of PRIME Physical Layer

Power Line Communications is a relatively new area of telecommunication. PLC employs full duplex methods for transmitting data over power lines as medium of transmission of electrical signals over a grid. PLC technologies are used in advanced meter reading, home automation and Public street lighting. Several PLC technologies classified based on the operational frequency range, are explored in this paper. PRIME is a new NBPLC system, which uses OFDM in its physical layer, for power line communication in the last mile. This work also focused on PRIME’s physical specifications, which was modeled in MATLAB/SIMULINK. In this paper, the performance of PRIME when its data is modulated using DQPSK and 4-QAM in four (4) channel models is shown.

POWER LINE COMMUNICATIONS FOR SMART HOME NETWORKS: MODELING, SIMULATION AND OPTIMIZATION

In recent years, research and development efforts are devoted to the deployment of information and communication technology (ICT) within residential buildings and houses, in order to provide services that will increase the quality of life. Although this trend is originated in the late 60’s as a result of the application of industrial automation to residential buildings and houses, i.e., home automation, nowadays, further services are offered to the final users, i.e., home networking and energy management. In fact, a lot of effort is put on the joint delivery of these services in order to make the home, namely the smart home (SH), an integral part of the future smart grid (SG). The concept of SH can be described as a house equipped with electronic systems and appliances, namely, “smart” appliances, which are able to exchange information by means of a communication network. However, these systems are characterized by a broad variety of communication technologies, standards and protocols, so that they often cannot interconnect, and/or interoperate and in some cases even coexist. In our opinion, coexistence, interconnection and interoperability problems represents the bottleneck to a pervasive deployment of smart appliances and systems within residential buildings and houses. To this respect, the first topic that we consider in this thesis is the definition of the SH network architecture and devices, which allows to obtain convergence among smart appliances. To this aim, a survey of the communication technologies, standards, protocols and also media, which can be used for SH applications, is necessary in order to define a network topology that is able to be scalable, extensible, and rather reliable. Moreover, in order to achieve interconnectivity among “smart” appliances, we define a shared common layer that is able to manage heterogeneous lower layers allowing network convergence. Once defined the SH network architecture and its network devices, we focus on power line communication (PLC) technologies and we implement a network testbed in order to evaluate some of the functionalities of the SH network within real environments. From the analysis of field trial data, we are able to highlight performances and disadvantages of two representative narrow band PLC (NB-PLC) solutions. Furthermore, exploiting the network testbed where broadband PLC (BB-PLC) technology is used to provide an Ethernet backbone for NB-PLC devices, we achieve interconnectivity between heterogeneous devices and we observe a significant improvement of the performances. Although NB-PLC technologies have been conceived for the development of low data rate applications and, in particular, for automatic meter reading (AMR), we focus our attention on the G3-PLC technology, for which we propose enhancements at the medium access control (MAC) sub-layer to allow the implementation of SH applications that could potentially require higher data rate than AMR. The G3-PLC technology has been taken into account since (i) it has been used as baseline technology for the development of popular communication standards for SG applications, and (ii) we have found, from the field trials, that the performance of NB-PLC may be poor in large houses where the signal is strongly attenuated because it spans large distances and crosses different circuit breakers (CBs), e.g., in multi-floor houses. Furthermore, an innovative cross-platform simulator that allows to realistically simulate the G3-PLC technology up to the network layer is presented. The proposed cross-platform consists of two different simulators jointly connected: one for the physical (PHY) layer and one for the data link layer (DLL)/network layer (NL). The PHY layer simulator is implemented in MATLAB, while the DLL/network simulator in OMNeT++. A convergent network architecture that permits the integration of the G3-PLC technology within a switched Ethernet network is also presented with the aim of improving the G3-PLC performance in large scale houses/buildings. The performance of the considered communication technology are presented through extensive numerical results for the in-home application scenario. Finally, the cross-platform simulator is used to evaluate G3-PLC systems for SG applications in the access network scenario. This is fundamental since the interaction of the outside world, i.e., the access network, with the SH is mandatory in order to achieve and exploit the SG concept. Moreover, to improve the performance and coverage of G3-PLC, a simple adaptive tone mapping algorithm together with a routing algorithm are also presented.Ricerca condotta all'interno del WiPLi Lab/Wireless and Power Line Communications LaboratoryopenDottorato di ricerca in Ingegneria industriale e dell'informazioneopenDI BERT, Luc

Performance Analysis of Discrete Wavelet Multitone Transceiver for Narrowband PLC in Smart Grid

Smart Grid is an abstract idea, which involves the utilization of powerlines for sensing, measurement, control and communication for efficient utilization and distribution of energy, as well as automation of meter reading, load management and capillary control of Green Energy resources connected to the grid. Powerline Communication (PLC) has assumed a new role in the Smart Grid scenario, adopting the narrowband PLC (NB-PLC) for a low cost and low data rate communication for applications such as, automatic meter reading, dynamic management of load, etc. In this paper, we have proposed and simulated a discrete wavelet multitone (DWMT) transceiver in the presence of impulse noise for the NB-PLC channel applications in Smart Grid. The simulation results show that a DWMT transceiver outperforms a DFT-DMT with reference to the bit error rate (BER) performance

Enhancements of G3-PLC technology for smart-home/building applications

To enable the smart grid concept, it is fundamental to consider the in-home/building context where, beside the conventional home networking services, home automation and smart energy management services have to be offered. In this paper, we consider the in-home/building scenario, for which we propose a convergent network architecture to enhance the performance of the narrowband power line communication (PLC) G3-PLC technology through its integration with an Ethernet-based network. To this end, we define the protocols characterizing the network modules, namely, switches and routers, which allow for integrating the G3-PLC with Ethernet devices. Since Ethernet represents a convergent standard for many communication devices, by adding this functionality to G3-PLC, interconnectivity with other heterogeneous nodes can be offered. Furthermore, since the G3-PLC medium access control layer is based on a carrier sense multiple access scheme, its performance decreases when the number of network nodes contending for the channel increases. Therefore, we evaluate the network performance when an optimized time division multiple access scheme is adopted. The proposed convergent network architecture has been implemented in the OMNeT++ network simulator

Virtual PLC Lab Enabled Physical Layer Improvement Proposals for PRIME and G3-PLC Standards

Narrowband (NB) powerline communication (PLC) is extensively adopted by utilities for the communication in advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) systems. PLC technology needs to overcome channel disturbances present in certain grid segments. This study analyzes improvement proposals of the physical layer of the main narrowband PLC technologies approved by international communication organizations that are currently deployed in Europe: Powerline Intelligent Metering Evolution (PRIME) 1.3.6, PRIME 1.4, and G3-PLC, in order to improve PLC performance under channel disturbances. This thorough study is based on simulations carried out by an innovative ad hoc Virtual PLC Lab, developed by the authors, applied in replicable, fully-automated, and cost reduced test scenarios. The analysis is performed by applying standardized test methods and metrics, and by evaluating the influence of a set of representative channel disturbances defined by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) and selected noises generated by distributed energy resources (DER) in normal operation. PLC performance improvements in terms of equalizer curve fitting, error correction codes, and noisy subcarrier suppression mechanisms are presented. The performance gain due to each physical improvement proposal is accurately measured and compared under the same conditions in a replicable and automated test environment in order to evaluate the use of the proposals in the evolution of future PLC technologies.This work was financially supported in part by the Basque Government under the grant numbers Elkartek KK-2018/00037 and IT1234-19, and by the Spanish Government under the grant RTI2018-099162-B-I00 (MCIU/AEI/FEDER, UE)

A new coupling solution for G3-PLC employment in MV smart grids

This paper proposes a new coupling solution for transmitting narrowband multicarrier power line communication (PLC) signals over medium voltage (MV) power lines. The proposed system is based on an innovative PLC coupling principle, patented by the authors, which exploits the capacitive divider embedded in voltage detecting systems (VDS) already installed inside the MV switchboard. Thus, no dedicated couplers have to be installed and no switchboard modifications or energy interruptions are needed. This allows a significant cost reduction of MV PLC implementation. A first prototype of the proposed coupling system was presented in previous papers: it had a 15 kHz bandwidth useful to couple single carrier PSK modulated PLC signals with a center frequency from 50–200 kHz. In this paper, a new prototype is developed with a larger bandwidth, up to 164 kHz, thus allowing to couple multicarrier G3-PLC signals using orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) digital modulation. This modulation ensures a more robust communication even in harsh power line channels. In the paper, the new coupling system design is described in detail. A new procedure is presented for tuning the coupling system parameters at first installation in a generic MV switchboard. Finally, laboratory and in-field experimental test results are reported and discussed. The coupling performances are evaluated measuring the throughput and success rate in the case of both 18 and 36 subcarriers, in one of the different tone masks standardized for the FCC-above CENELEC band (that is, from 154.6875–487.5 kHz). The experimental results show an efficient behavior of the proposed coupler allowing a two-way communication of G3-PLC OFDM signals on MV networks