The analysis of the outdoor powerline channel in Zhengzhou

Abstract

The measurement and characterization of electric power grid as medium to provide data communication is a task of practical importance as well as pursuing new generation of Power Line Communication (PLC) technologies. Contrary to other communication channels, the power line channel does not represent an additive white noise environment. It is mostly dominated by narrow band interference and impulsive noise, particularly the impulsive noise leads significant time variance into to powerline. The root mean square delay spread associated with the power line can provide important information for determining the data transmission rate and designing the appropriate equalization techniques for PLC. With this regard, an outdoor measurement is made in Zhengzhou, China. Based on the measurement results, the noise in the tested channel is obtained. The noise shows the impulsive behavior which is consistent with the theory statistical model. Furthermore, the maximum, average and minimum variances of the noise are examined. Finally, the root mean square delay spread of the tested channel is calculated, which follows that the maximum transmission rate of the tested channel is approximately 1.6 Mbps.