Improved impulse detection in power line communication systems

Impulse noise is generated by many house hold appliances that are attached to the electrical network. Its presence is often detrimental to the performance of a power line communication system, causing PHY throughput degradation in the order of 30-50%. The goal of impulse noise mitigation is to improve the SNR of the received signal by means of signal processing tools. In this work we focus on optimizing the detection of impulsive noises. A new method is developed for the setting of the detection threshold, that is both efficiently computed (in an iterative manner), and performs well in various impulsive noise conditions. Once impulses are detected they are removed from the received waveform by applying simple windowing mechanisms. To evaluate different impulse detection algorithms we test them against real life (impulsive) noise waveforms that have been captured on the power line. The selected algorithm is further validated on the power line against realtime captures of impulse noise impeded signals.