First Constraints on the Ultra-High Energy Neutrino Flux from a Prototype Station of the Askaryan Radio Array

The Askaryan Radio Array (ARA) is an ultra-high energy ($>10^{17}$ eV) cosmic neutrino detector in phased construction near the South Pole. ARA searches for radio Cherenkov emission from particle cascades induced by neutrino interactions in the ice using radio frequency antennas ($\sim150-800$ MHz) deployed at a design depth of 200 m in the Antarctic ice. A prototype ARA Testbed station was deployed at $\sim30$ m depth in the 2010-2011 season and the first three full ARA stations were deployed in the 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 seasons. We present the first neutrino search with ARA using data taken in 2011 and 2012 with the ARA Testbed and the resulting constraints on the neutrino flux from $10^{17}-10^{21}$ eV.Comment: 26 pages, 15 figures. Since first revision, added section on systematic uncertainties, updated limits and uncertainty band with improvements to simulation, added appendix describing ray tracing algorithm. Final revision includes a section on cosmic ray backgrounds. Published in Astropart. Phys.

The Environmental Impacts of Radio Frequency and Power Line Communication for Advanced Metering Infrastructures in Smart Grids

In the neighborhood area network (NAN), the advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) enables a bidirectional connection between the smart meter (SM) and the data concentrator (DC). Sensors, such as smart meter nodes or environmental sensor nodes, play a crucial role in measuring and transmitting data to central units for advanced monitoring, management, and analysis of energy consumption. Wired and wireless communication technologies are used to implement the AMI-NAN. This paper delves into a novel approach for optimizing the choice of communication medium, air for radio frequency (RF) or power lines for power line communication (PLC), between the SM and DC in the context of the AMI-NAN. The authors methodically select the specific technologies, RF and NB-PLC (narrowband power line communication), and meticulously characterize their attributes. Then, a comparative analysis spanning rural, urban, and industrial settings is conducted to evaluate the proposed method. The overall reliability performance of the AMI-NAN system requires a packet error rate (PER) lower than 10%. To this end, an efficient approach is introduced to assess and enhance the reliability of NB-PLC and RF for AMI-NAN applications. Simulation results demonstrate that wireless communication is the optimal choice for the rural scenario, especially for a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) lower than 25 dB. However, in urban environments characterized by higher SNR values and moderately dense networks, NB-PLC gains prominence. In denser networks, it outperforms wireless communication, exhibiting a remarkable 10 dB gain for a bit error rate (BER) of 10−3. Moreover, in industrial zones characterized by intricate network topologies and non-linear loads, the power line channel emerges as the optimal choice for data transmission

Noise Sources, Effects and Countermeasures in Narrowband Power-Line Communications Networks: A Practical Approach

The integration of Distributed Generation, Electric Vehicles, and storage without compromising the quality of the power delivery requires the deployment of a communications overlay that allows monitoring and controlling low voltage networks in almost real time. Power Line Communications are gaining momentum for this purpose since they present a great trade-off between economic and technical features. However, the power lines also represent a harsh communications medium which presents different problems such as noise, which is indeed affected by Distributed Generation, Electric Vehicles, and storage. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of the types of noise that affects Narrowband Power Line Communications, including normative noises, noises coming from common electronic devices measured in actual operational power distribution networks, and noises coming from photovoltaic inverters and electric vehicle charging spots measured in a controlled environment. The paper also reviews several techniques to mitigate the effects of noise, paying special attention to passive filtering, as for being one of the most widely used solution to avoid this kind of problems in the field. In addition, the paper presents a set of tests carried out to evaluate the impact of some representative noises on Narrowband Power Line Communications network performance, as well as the effectiveness of different passive filter configurations to mitigate such an impact. In addition, the considered sources of noise can also bring value to further improve PLC communications in the new scenarios of the Smart Grid as an input to theoretical models or simulations.This work has been partly funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through the National Program for Research Aimed at the Challenges of Society under the project OSIRIS (RTC-2014-1556-3) and through the network of excellence REDYD2050 (ENE2015-70032-REDT)

Interference Simulator for the Whole HF Band: Application to CW-Morse

In this paper, we use jointly a model of narrow band interference and a congestion model to model and implement an interference simulator for the whole HF band. The result is a model to generate interfering signals that could be found in a given frequency allocation, at a given time (past, present, or future) and for a given location. Our model does not require measurements and it is characterized by its ease of use and the freedom it offers to choose scene (modulation, location, week, year, etc.). In addition, we have defined a generic modulating function and the conditions to model a contact continuous wave (CW)-Morse, which meets the usual standards of contest. Consequently, our interference model in conjunction with the CW-Morse modulating function designed results in a specific CW-Morse model for amateur contests. As an example of the simulation model, we simulate the CW-Morse communications on the contest ARR ARRL Field Day 2011.Comment: copyright 2023 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other work

Time domain analysis of switching transient fields in high voltage substations

Switching operations of circuit breakers and disconnect switches generate transient currents propagating along the substation busbars. At the moment of switching, the busbars temporarily acts as antennae radiating transient electromagnetic fields within the substations. The radiated fields may interfere and disrupt normal operations of electronic equipment used within the substation for measurement, control and communication purposes. Hence there is the need to fully characterise the substation electromagnetic environment as early as the design stage of substation planning and operation to ensure safe operations of the electronic equipment. This paper deals with the computation of transient electromagnetic fields due to switching within a high voltage air-insulated substation (AIS) using the finite difference time domain (FDTD) metho

Noise Sources, Effects and Countermeasures in Narrowband Power-Line Communications Networks: A Practical Approach

The integration of Distributed Generation, Electric Vehicles, and storage without compromising the quality of the power delivery requires the deployment of a communications overlay that allows monitoring and controlling low voltage networks in almost real time. Power Line Communications are gaining momentum for this purpose since they present a great trade-off between economic and technical features. However, the power lines also represent a harsh communications medium which presents different problems such as noise, which is indeed affected by Distributed Generation, Electric Vehicles, and storage. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of the types of noise that affects Narrowband Power Line Communications, including normative noises, noises coming from common electronic devices measured in actual operational power distribution networks, and noises coming from photovoltaic inverters and electric vehicle charging spots measured in a controlled environment. The paper also reviews several techniques to mitigate the effects of noise, paying special attention to passive filtering, as for being one of the most widely used solution to avoid this kind of problems in the field. In addition, the paper presents a set of tests carried out to evaluate the impact of some representative noises on Narrowband Power Line Communications network performance, as well as the effectiveness of different passive filter configurations to mitigate such an impact. In addition, the considered sources of noise can also bring value to further improve PLC communications in the new scenarios of the Smart Grid as an input to theoretical models or simulations.This work has been partly funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through the National Program for Research Aimed at the Challenges of Society under the project OSIRIS (RTC-2014-1556-3) and through the network of excellence REDYD2050 (ENE2015-70032-REDT)