Feasibility of a High-Bit-Rate Power-Line Communication Between an Inverter and a Motor

In the aerospace domain, more electrical aircraft will have to face a drastic issue in the future, in relation to an increase in the number of wires and connectors, which impact weight and system reliability. A possible solution could be using power-line communications (PLC). In this paper, we focus our attention on the feasibility of communication between a pulsewidth modulation inverter and a motor, using a three-phase cable as a physical support for the data transmission, with a transmitting frequency band extending from 1 to 30 MHz. The required raw bit rate is on the order of 5 to 20 Mbits/s. Noise measurements, in both the time and frequency domains, were performed to extract the main characteristics of the impulsive noise generated by the inverter. Channel transfer functions were measured for an inductive coupling to the motor cable. A software tool simulating the communication link was developed, which is based on recent signal specifications for PLC. Furthermore, noise processing techniques are also proposed, to decrease the impact of the impulsive noise on the received signals. By introducing both the measured transfer functions and noise in the simulation tool, performances of the link, in terms of bit error rate, are presented.