Dynamic Channel Adaptation for AC Synchronized Powerline Channel

Abstract

Broadband Power Line Communications (PLC) technology allows the usage of electrical power supply networks for communications purposes, such as audio/video streaming and broadband internet access. The powerline has an inherent characteristic that is the cyclic variation of channel and noise with the phase of the AC line cycle. To achieve either high throughput or high robustness, we apply dynamic channel adaptation scheme that exploits the cyclic variation of powerline characteristics. In this paper, we introduce an expedient, dynamic channel adaptation which is robust against the short-time variation of the AC synchronized powerline channel and noise. We analyze the performance enhancement for the measured powerline channel and noise when the proposed adaptation scheme is applied to the Korean standard on high speed powerline communications. Analysis of the simulation result has shown that an average of 30% improvement in the throughput can be achieved by using AC line based adaptation.