Connecting electrical appliances to a home network using low-cost power-line communication

Abstract

This paper discusses a novel "proxy" approach, aimed at connecting digital appliances to a home network and based on ultra low cost, narrow band power-line transmission (ULP). Bidirectional point-to-point communication is carried out on the power-supply wire between the appliance itself and the outlet. Here a dedicated device embeds both network management functions and ULP communication, acting as a proxy between the appliance and the home network. Through this approach, white goods, as well as any other electrical household appliance, can be connected to the home network at extremely low communication cost and with no constraints related to the actual communication protocol choice. In this summary, after a brief introduction, the network structure is presented. Next, physical layer of ULP protocol is discussed and a prototypal HW implementation is presented. Finally, experimental ULP performances are discussed and conclusions are drawn.