: Experimental Research of Data Transmission over Building Electrical Power Wiring Using PLC Homeplug Modems

Istnieje wiele kryteriów podziału sieci teleinformatycznych: ze względu na architekturę, zasięg działania, wykorzystywane medium transmisyjne. Dodatkowym kryterium klasyfikacji mogą być również czynniki ekonomiczne, takie jak koszt budowy infrastruktury sieciowej (np. koszty okablowania strukturalnego dla sieci typu Ethernet 100BaseT, kabla CATV, itp.) czy koszt podłączenia kolejnego odbiorcy. Najbardziej atrakcyjne ze względów ekonomicznych są te sieci, które nie wymagają inwestycji w postaci nowego okablowania (m.in. sieci bezprzewodowe WLAN), ewentualnie sieci, które są w stanie przyjąć nowe formaty transmisji (siec telefoniczna - ADSL, sieć CATV - DOCSIS). W niniejszym artykule omówiony zostanie stosunkowo mało rozpowszechniony w Polsce sposób transmisji danych, wykorzystujący jako medium istniejące sieci elektroenergetyczne niskiego napięcia (~230V). Sieci te ze względu na powszechność instalacji elektroenergetycznej mogą w przyszłości stanowić konkurencję dla najbardziej rozpowszechnionych metod dostępu do Internetu bazujących na pętli abonenckiej oraz lokalnych sieci kablowych i bezprzewodowych WLAN. Ponadto ze względu na niezawodność transmisji mogą być stosowane jako rozwiązanie alternatywne do budowy przemysłowych sieci transmisji danych.Telecommunications networks can be divided into different categories using many different criteria, such as the network architecture, coverage area, media types, etc. Economical aspects such as network installation cost or cost of connecting of a new customer could be considered as an additional network classification level (for example: Ethernet 100BaseT or CATV network structure cabling cost). The most attractive, from a business point of view is structural wiring or existing networks which can convey enhanced transmission formats (PSTN with ADSL, CATV with DOCSIS). In this paper a barely popular in Poland data transmission technique is presented. The described PLC technique takes an advantage of existing low-voltage (~230V) power lines as a data bearer. Ubiquitous power-line networks can be consider in the near future as a very competitive to a typical Internet access network based on customer's local loop or local area, fixed and wireless networks

Final report on practical assessment of the RESCUE architecture:ICT-619555 RESCUE D4.4 Version 1.0

Abstract This deliverable summarizes the practical assessment of the links-on-the-fly concept. To do so, a software and hardware integration based on GNU Radio and SDR devices has been performed. Intensive verification and validation within three different testing facilities provided a stable framework for the subsequent assessment. The evaluation strategy comprises experiments under controllable and reproducible test conditions considering the OTAinVEE approach followed by field trials in an indoor testbed emulating the public safety use case, as well as outdoor tests emulating the V2V scenario. Finally, the outcomes of the practical evaluations are compared and analyzed jointly. These results are also analyzed in the light of previous outcomes from other work packages within the RESCUE project.Executive summary D4.4 is the final report of WP4. It presents the software and hardware integration into the selected SDR platform as well as the functional validation and first results within the OTAinVEE test facility. Moreover, two real field experimental trials have been planned and conducted for an indoor and outdoor scenario respectively. The deliverable aims to close the performance validation circle envisaged within the RESCUE project: increasing degree of realistic assumptions during the specific validation stages starting from WP1 over to WP2 and WP3 and finally to WP4. However, real field experiments are usually limited by the number of device deployments, capabilities of the selected software and hardware platform as well as limits in the available experimental time-frame. Therefore, the reported experiments cover the basic scenarios TS0 and TS1, consisting of two and three nodes, respectively. The deliverable consists of four main parts. The first part gives a detailed technical background of the software and hardware framework used to incorporate the RESCUE architecture. For this reason, and in order to obtain stable, reproducible and trustable results, the open-source GNU Radio framework and USRPs from Ettus/National Instruments have been selected as a compromise between flexibility, performance, and costs. Standard building blocks from GNU Radio have been customized to provide a basic physical and MAC layout. Contributions from WP2 and WP3 in terms of implemented software blocks were integrated, including the RESCUE coding algorithms (from WP2) and the network protocols (from WP3). Besides iterative bug fixing and code optimization, the challenging tasks during the testbed verification were the frame synchronization, SNR estimation, and calibration of the testbeds between different WP4 partners. The second part summarizes the verification and experiments based on the OTAinVEE (over-the-air in a virtual electromagnetic environment) concept. Within RESCUE, this specific validation stage turned out to be very valuable since the controllable and reproducible test conditions allowed for deep software and hardware verification followed by intensive performance validation before the real field experiments were conducted. The third part of the deliverable focuses on the real field experiments. Initially, trials were planned only for the public safety scenario with a focus on an indoor deployment. For the V2V use case, performance studies based on the OTAinVEE framework had been programmed. However, following the recommendation from the RESCUE reviewers suggesting to study the RESCUE architecture not only under synthesized traffic and propagation conditions but also to conduct real field experiments, the consortium deployed additional efforts for this purpose. Consequently, for both deployments the technical configuration and experimental test plan are detailed in this document. Whereby for the V2V setup one of the challenging parts was to integrate an efficient hence remote access to each mobile node in such a way that the individual measurements could be configured and started while the vehicles were moving. Numerous experiments have been conducted in particular for TS0 PHY and MAC as well as for TS1. However, other scenarios or more intense trials have been limited by the enormous time consumption of each single test to provide enough datasets fulfilling statistical means. The fourth part of D4.4 provides final assessments and conclusions. It aims to bridge the research and validation methods used within the RESCUE project and their subsequent performance results. The considered stages of performance validation balance between realism and simplification while moving from theory to practice. Results from three different WPs: WP2, WP3 as well as WP4 are discussed and related among each other. From the validation method perspective it can be concluded that this project was able to research the capabilities of the links-on-the-fly concept with a very ambitious approach bridging the ineluctable gap between theory and practice. It was found that the gains of this new architecture are impacted by the implementation of more practical-oriented validation methods of increasing complexity. A detailed analysis identifying the potential impact of the validation methodologies on the given results, e.g., the small number of nodes during the experiments or constraints by the software and hardware implementation and integration of the test platform, are left for future study