Designing a narrow band PLC front-end platform

Abstract

Power Line Communications has been recently again seen by energy companies as a useful and natural technology for performing Automatic Meter Reading (AMR) within the currently smart grid network concept. This paper presents a hardware platform proposal for the physical communication layer using Power Line Communications technology and the PRIME parameters specifications. The hardware targets are ASIC and programmable logic devices. This platform aims also the assessment of the effects of different noise sources, main problem of power line technology. The platform is focused on introducing solutions in hardware to mitigate impulsive noise reported for authors in literature. It is well know that the physical noise, such as background and impulsive noise sources, generate severe disruptions in the communication channel. The platform is a first step to evaluate the communication performance with hostile environments in the physical layer.