Performance of Gabidulin codes for narrowband PLC smart grid networks

This paper studies the Power Line Communications (PLC) and tackles the problem of criss-cross noise. In the literature, it is proposed to use Reed-Solomon code concatenated with convolutional code associated with an interleaver. For instance in the context of smart grid, some standards like G3 and IEEE 1901.2 use this scheme. However, the narrowband interference and impulsive noise, which are typical in the PLC, make these schemes inefficient. In this paper we propose to replace the Reed-Solomon code by a kind of rank metric code (Gabidulin code) that can correct a whole line or row of a code word, which is arranged in a matrix. Using OFDM modulation, the columns of code matrix contain the OFDM symbols. We show by simulation that the proposed system outperforms the traditional scheme where the PLC channel is subjected to both impulsive noise and narrowband interference.