Noise characteristics investigation and utilization in low voltage powerline communication

The low voltage powerline is one of the complicated communication media and the quality of the signal transmission is strongly polluted by the omnipresent noise, heavy jamming due to a variety of loads, and unpredictable effects on signal propagation. The purpose of this article is threefold. First it presents the powerline as a new millennium technology in the communication area. Some technical advantages and business opportunities are summarized. Secondly, from experimental measurement results to analytical methods, this paper is intended to establish powerline performance and limitation parameters. Analytical methods are based on time-frequency energy distribution applying the Wigner-Ville Distribution and signal atomic decomposition applying both the Renyi information and the cross-correlation analysis. Experimental measurements have been taken at various noisy affected places in order to investigate the powerline noise characteristics. Finally, this paper also investigates the possibility of using noise as a tool for powerline communication. A practical model is proposed in order to guarantee data integrity in such a noisy environment. Additionally, the high frequency powerline transmission has been investigated and some preliminary results are given