Bit Error Rate performance in Power Line Communication Channels with Impulsive Noise

The performance of Power Line Communication (PLC) degrades due to the presence of different types of noise interferences generated by electrical appliances. This paper investigates the bit-error rate (BER) performance of a higherorder 64-QAM constellation with orthogonal frequency multiplexing modulation (OFDM) in presence of impulsive noise modelled as Middleton Class A over a multipath PLC. It is observed that BER for the impulsive noise is higher than the background noise. The BER further deteriorates on increasing the level of the impulsive noise, even while being injected into the PLC channel at a lower rate. Investigations would assist applying methods to mitigate and reduce the effect of impulsive noise over PLC systems for higher constellations with a view to increase the data rates

Data transfer over low-voltage European power distribution networks

Broadband power line (BPL) data transmission deals with transfer of data via the existing power line systems and is a fast emerging technology. The main advantage of BPL is being able to use the existing power line infrastructure, thereby reducing the cost. However, power line systems were not designed for high-speed data transmission as they consist of various branches and power line elements such as bridges, taps, transformers and capacitor banks. Therefore, the power line transmission medium not only introduces noise but is also adverse to high-speed data transfer in terms of the channel bandwidth. In this paper a power line channel has been modelled using Matlab and the effects of variations in the direct length, branch length and branch load on the channel frequency response are investigated. Simulations indicate suitability of multi-carrier transmission over the power line channels