Preamble-based channel estimation in HomePlug AV systems

In this paper, we investigate channel estimation in the context of the orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) based HomePlug AV system using the channel models provided by the open power-line communication European research alliance (OPERA). In particular, for increasing the system data rate efficiency, the two proposed algorithms do not make use of known OFDM symbols but exploit the synchronization preamble available at the beginning of each frame. However, the spectrum of the preamble i) contains many band gaps where data is not available and ii) in the remaining spectrum data is highly fluctuating in power. By several simulations using OPERA channel models, we will show the significant performance of the two proposed schemes, that offer a trade-off between complexity and performance.