Power Line Communications: An Overview — Part I

Muhammad Salman Yousuf*, Mustafa El-Shafei**

* Research Assistant, Department of Electrical Engineering
** Professor, Department of 5ystems Engineerin g
King Fahd Universi ty of Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran, KSA.
syousufd kfupm. edu.sa, elshafei d ccse.kfupm. edu.sa

Abstract
2.1. A Bit of History
We give an overview of the Power Line
Commission (PLC) technology, i/s importance, i/s Initially, the first application involving data
standards and an overview of the HomePlu g standards transmissions over power lines were primarily done
associated with it. This is done is two parts due to only to protect sections of the power distribution
publican on cons/rnin/s. la his part we will system in case of faults. (In fact, power line protection
concentrate on the PLC applicant one and the technical remains one of the primary functions of power line
issues regardin g it. We will also see the layers and communications.) In such an event, the fast exchange
methods that are needed to make it work. of information is necessary between power plants,
substations and distribution centers so as to minimize
beworts -. Latest technology, Power Line their detrimental effects. The robustness of the power
Communications, PLC, Standards, HomePliig 1.0, lines and their ready connectivity and availability make
HomePlii g AV. this technique an optimal solution.
Narrowband power line communications started
1. Introduction soon after the beginning of wide-spread electrical
power supply. Around the year 1922 the first carrier
Power lines were originally devised to transmit frequency systems began to operate over high-tension
electric power from a small number of sources (the lines in the frequency range 15 to 500 kHz for
generators) to a large number of sinks (the consumers) telemetry purposes, and this continues to the present
in the frequency range of 50-60 Hz. It is a fact that time [1]. Consumer products such as baby alarms have
power transmission towers and lines are some of the been available at least since 1940. [2]
most robust structures ever built. Historically, the PLC Historically, also, a primary motivation for power
technology has very limited applications but now we line communications has been to do load management
are witnessing the possibility of it being acclaimed in future. The currently employed ripple control
universally as a prime mode of long-haul data systems have the disadvantage of requiring several
communication. megawatts for information transmission. A second
With the inevitable arrival of broadband access, important motivation has been to facilitate meter
the demand for sending digital voice, video and reading from a distance. An English study has shown
Internet data within the home increases continuously. that a meter reader achieves an average information
While retrofitting the houses and neighborhoods with rate of only about 1 bit/s [3]. The Tokyo Electric
special wires is one option, it is expensive and time Power Co was running experiments in the 1970’s
consuming. PLC Technology allows the use of the which reported successful bi-directional operation with
existing and widespread power distribution several hundred units [4].
infrastructure to provide high speed networking Considering that data transmission over power
capabilities along with many other benefits. lines has been around for quite some time, one might
Section 2 gives a brief application history and the wonder why it is receiving such renewed attention
shining prospects of PLC technology. Section 3 recently especially considering the data rate for
discusses the technical issues in PLC, its layers and protection and telemetering purposes is at most a few
protocols. The second part of this overview will focus kb/sec and is not comparable to the Mb/sec data that
on the standards and the HomePlug standards. needs to be supported for multimedia applications? The
answer is a combination of effects that took place
2. A Treatise on PLC Applications during the mid thru late 1990s, namely, the explosive

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growth of the Internet and the gigantic leaps in VLSI
(Very Large Integrated Circuits) and DS P (Digital
Signal Processing) technology. Then was the
D ktop
telecommunications market deregulation, first in the
US and then in Europe and Asia. All these events have
made power line communications a viable technology
for numerous other applications.
PLC
Transceiver
2.1.1. Home Autonutioir Power line Tele hore
communications technology can use the household
electrical power wiring as a transmission medium This
is a technique used in home automation for remote
control of lighting and appliances and sensors for learner
alarm systems etc without installation of additional
PLC Printer
control wiring. This is primarily based on the X10 Transceiver
Industrial Standard and has been in development since
1975. A detailed article on this standard and its Eigure 1: The “last-inch” networking through PLC.
application can be found in [5].
However, due to several issues hampering the
2.1.2. Home Networking and Internet Access implementation and usefulness of BPL, one possible
(Broadbaml over Power Lines, BPL). It follows that alternative is to use BPL as the backhaul for wireless
we can use the low voltage power network as a Local communications, by for instance hanging Wi—Fi access
Area Network (LAN) for conveniently connecting points or cellphone base stations on utility poles, thus
many different computers in the same building. With allowing end—users within a certain range to connect
multiple outlets in every room, residential power lines with equipment they akeady have. In the near future,
are already the most pervasive network in the horne. BPL might also be used as a backhaul for WiMAX
Using this existing infrastructure to provide high speed networks.
networking capabilities provides several benefits. First Substation
of all, there is no need for expensive rewiring of the Local Loop Distr bvtion Oenter
house. Secondly, alrix›st all devices that need to be Lnksio
To lvledium Vo kage Network
networked are akeady connected to the AC wiring. PSTN:YAN
Thus, home networking becomes as simple as plugging
the device in the AC outlet.
The market for PLC for consumers is thus two-
fold: to the home, or “last mile” access; and in the
horne, or “last inch” access. [6]
The development of the “last inch” by Horne-
networking companies in the form wireless network
adapters and power-line adapters is gradually leading
to widespread horne networking; i.e., a wide array of
devices connected inside the horne in an intra-home
network. This “in-horne networking” could transform
all power outlets in the household into broadband
connections for PCs, telephones and their accessories, Eigure 2: The ‘4ast-mile” broadband access to
as well as other ‘enabled' electric appliances. homes and offices through the local power
Figure 1 illustrates the concept of “last inch” or distribution center.
in- horne networking, while Figure 2 illustrates the
“last mile” concept. Much higher speed transmissions using
Broadband over power lines (B PL), also known microwave bequencies transmitted via a newly
as discovered surface wave propagation mechanism
power- line internet or Powerband, is the use of PLC called E-Line have been demonstrated using only a
technology to provide broadband Internet access single power line conductor. These systems have
through ordinary power lines. A computer (or any shown the potential for symmetric and full duplex
other device) would need only to plug a B PL communication well in excess of 1 Gbit/s in each
”modem” into any outlet in an equipped building to direction [7].
have high- speed Internet access.
 Multiple WiFi channels with simultaneous analog in [10]. The quality of power can also be measured
television in the 2.4 and 5.3 GHz unlicensed bands using PLC [11].
have been demonstrated operating over a single
medium voltage line. Furthermore, because it can
3. Issues in PLC
operate anywhere in the 100 MHz - 10 GHz region,
this technology can completely avoid the interference
issues associated with utilizing shared spectrum while 3.1. The Powerline Channel as Transmission
offering the greater flexibility for modulation and Medium
protocols found for any other type of microwave
system. 3.1.1. Design. First off, the power line carrier was
At present there is no universal standard for power not specifically designed for data transmission and
line communication for this purpose. However, provides a harsh environment for it. Varying
HomePlug Power line Alliance has defined enduring impedance, considerable noise that is not white in
standards, the detailed exposition of which is in nature and high levels of frequency-dependent
Sections 5 and 6. attenuation are the main issues.

2.1.3. Narrowband PLC - Radio Broadcasting. 3.1.2. Varying Channel Model. For successful
PLC for radio transmission was and is widely used in communication, the communication channel must be
Germany (Drahtfunk), Switzerland first modeled and analyzed accordingly. The channel
(Telefonrundspruch), Norway (Linjesender), USS R between any two outlets in a home has the transfer
and some other countries. In all cases the radio function of an extremely complicated line network.
program was fed by special transformers into the lines. Power line networks are usually made of a variety of
In order to prevent uncontrolled propagation, filters for conductor types, joined almost at random, and
the carrier frequencies of the PLC systems were terminating into loads of varying impedance. Over
installed in substations and at line branches. The such a transmission medium, the amplitude and phase
narrowband powerline communications channel response may vary widely with frequency. While the
presents many technical challenges. A mathematical signal may arrive at the receiver with very little loss
channel model and a survey of work can be found in over some frequencies, it may be completely
[8]. indistinguishable over other frequencies. Worse, the
channel transfer function itself is time varying since
2.1.4. Automotive. Power-line technology enables in- plugging in or switching off of devices connected to
vehicle network communication of Data, Voice, Music the network would change the network topology.
and Video signals by digital means over Direct Hence, the channel may be described as random and
Current (DC) battery power-line. Advanced digital time varying with a frequency dependent signal to
communication techniques tailored to overcome hostile noise ratio (SNR) over the transmission bandwidth.
and noisy environment are implemented in a small size A detailed discussion of modeling with
silicon device. One power line can be used for multiple mathematical treatment for a Power Line Channel is
independent networks. given in [12]. The signal propagation modeling in P LC
Prototypes are successfully operational in vehicles networks is given in [13].
using automotive compatible protocols such as CAN-
bus, LIN-bus over power line (DC-LIN) and DC-bus 3.1.3. High Dependence of Transmitter and
developed by Yamar. Automotive applications include Receiver Location. The location of the transmitter or
Mechatronics (e.g. Climate controls, Door modules, the receiver (in this case the power outlet) could also
Immobilizers, Obstacle detectors), Telematics and have a serious effect on transmission error rates. For
Multimedia. example, a receiver close to a noise source would have
a poor signal to noise ratio (SNR) compared to one
2.1.5. Further Reading on Specific Applications. further away from the noise source. The noise sources
Nowadays, we are seeing novel applications being could be home devices plugged into the network.
developed using PLC and there is a wealth of literature
available on the topic. The demand for home 3.1.4. Reflection, Multi-path Fading and
automation systems / intelligent homes has fueled Attenuation. Just like a wireless channel, signal
much research and practical intelligent homes have propagation does not take place between the
been designed, as in [9]. Cavdar has presented a transmitter and the receiver along a line-of-sight path.
solution to remote detection of illegal electricity usage As a result, additional echoes must be considered. This
echoing occurs because a number of propagation paths
exist between the transmitter and the receiver. symbols during high data transmission at certain
Reflection of the signal often occurs due to the various frequencies. It is caused from switching transients in
impedance mismatches in the electric network. Each the system network.
multi-path would have a certain weight factor With this discussion we are ready to generalize a
attributed to it to account for the reflection and PLC system into a model as shown in block diagram
transmission losses. All reflection and transmission form in figure 3.
parameters in a power line channel may be assumed to
Colored noise + Narrowband
be less than one. The number of dominant multi-paths
noise + Synchronous and
to be considered (N) is often not more than five or six
Asynchronous Impulse noise
since additional multi-paths are usually too weak to be
of any significance. This is because the more
transitions and reflections that occur along a path, the
smaller its weighting factor would be. It has been
observed from channel measurements that at higher R(I)
frequencies the channel attenuation increases. Transmitter Channel Receive
3.1.5. Noise. Noise in power lines is a significant Figure 3: General block diagram for PLC systems.
problem for data transmission. This is because it rarely
has properties similar to the easily analyzed white 3.2. Layers, Access Methods and Protocols.
Gaussian noise of the receiver with which we are much
familiar with. Typical sources of noise are brush The communication in power lines can be
motors, fluorescent and halogen lamps, switching divided into two main layers: The P/iys/ca/ Lryer and
power supplies and dimmer switches. Apart from the Medium Access Control [MAC) La her.
these, ingress sources such as amateur radio The Physical Layer defines the modulation
transmission can render certain frequencies unfit for techniques to transmit data over the power lines while
communication. The noise in power lines can be the MAC protocol specifies as resource sharing
impulsive or frequency selective in nature and, strategy i.e. the access of multiple users to the network
sometimes, both. Due to high attenuation over the transmission capacity based on a fixed resource sharing
power line, the noise is also location dependent. protocol. Communicating at the PLC Physical Layer
Recent studies have indicated that the noise in demands robust modulation techniques like Frequency
PLC systems can be typified into four categories. Shift Keying (FSK), Code-Division Multiple Access
i. Colored noise: This type of noise has relatively low (CDMA) and Orthogonal Frequency Division
power spectral density (psd) which decreases with Multiplexing (OFDM). For low cost, low data rate
increasing frequency. It is considered to be the sum of applications, such as power line protection and
all low power noise sources and may be time varying. telemetering, FSK is seen as a good solution. For data
ii. Narrowband background noise: This noise is rates up to lMbps, the CDMA technique may provide
mainly due to amplitude modulated sinusoidal signals. an effective solution. However, for high data
This kind of interference is from broadcast stations in applications beyond that, OFDM is the technology of
the medium and short wave bands. The interference choice for PLC. For MAC, there are generally two
level varies during different times of the day. categories of access schemes.
iii. Impulse noise that is synchronous with the
generator’s actual supply frequency: This type of 3.2.1. Fixed Access. It assigns each user a
impulse noise usually repeats at multiples of the supply predetermined or fixed channel capacity irrespective of
frequency of 60/50Hz. It has a short duration of about a whether the user needs to transmit data at that time.
few microseconds and a power spectral density that Such schemes are not suitable for traffic in bursts, such
decreases with increasing frequency. The noise is as data transmission that is provided by PLC.
caused from power supplies operating synchronously
to the main’s frequency. 3.2.2. Dynamic Access. These protocols may be
iv. Impulse noise asynchronous with the main’s classified into two separate categories: Contention
frequency: This is the most detrimental type of noise based protocols where collisions occur and Arbitration
for data transmission. Its duration varies from a few protocols which are collision free.
microseconds to milliseconds and has a random inter- Contention protocols may not be able to guarantee
arrival time. The psd of such impulse noise may be as a quality of service (QoS), especially for time critical
much as 50dB above the background noise spectrum. applications, since collisions might occur and data
Hence, it is capable of wiping out blocks of data might have to be retransmitted. Arbitration based

221
protocols are more capable of guaranteeing a certain idea of the structure of the standards involved with it.
QoS. However, contention based protocols may We will discuss the more important technical issues
actually provide higher data rates in applications which related to the standards in Part II.
do not have stringent QoS requirements (e.g., Internet
applications). This is because they require much less
5. Acknowledgment
overhead compared to arbitration protocols (polling,
reservation, token passing).
We are extremely grateful to King Fahd University of
The widely studied protocols for MAC Layer in
Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran, KSA.
PLC are.

3.2.3. Polling. It is a primary/secondary access method 6. References

in which the primary station asks the secondary station
[1] K Dostert, 1997, Telecommunications over the Power
if it has any data to send. Arbitration based polling can
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handle heavy traffic and does provide QoS guarantees. Internet. Syrup. on Power Line Comms and its Applications
pp1-9
3.2.4. Aloha. It is a random access protocol in which a [2] R Broadridge Power line modems and networks' 4’ th
user accesses a channel as soon as it has data to send. International Conference on Metering Applications and
Tariffs for Electnci ty Supply IEE conf. , London.
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YAN Heng-Ming
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[14] Computer Networks, 4t1i Edition, Tanenbauim Andrew
In this overview, we have seen the evolution and 5 , Vrije Universi ter I, Amsterdam.
potential of PLC technology and have gained some