Powerline Communication systems

Mr. Sam Shi - CTO  Corinex Communications Corp.
BCIT SW3-1750 on Mon. June 9 from 7:00pm - 9:00pm.

Technologies of power line communications (PLC) were developed almost one hundred years ago along with the power industry. However, high-speed data (14Mbps to 200Mbps) communication, i.e., Broadband Power Line (BPL), as a part of Internet access merged just a couple of years. In the presentation we’ll focus on the following parts:

Physical characteristics of power line grid;

Electricity grid is a dynamic system due to changeable impedance, loads and noise.

OFDM (Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing) and DSP technology;

Able to cope with problems commonly exited on power line: multipath, narrowband interference,  high frequency-attenuation, frequency-selective fading.

Home-broadband applications;

Inthernet access distribution, HDTV signal transmissin, VoIP and appliance-control. Advantages and disadvantages comparision  with wireless.

Utility applications:

Tranditional power-grid control: metering and control. “Green-power-grid” trial by IBM Central-point and Corinex.

Networking features of BPL devices;

VLAN, SNMP, FTP, 802.1D, 802.1Q VLAN, MAC filtering, MAC&QoS, TCP/IPv4, TFTP, DHCP,..

UPA (DS2) and Home Plug Powerline Alliance (Intellon)

Two main R&D organizations in BPL.

DS2: DSS9001, 9002, 9003;

Intellon: INT6000, INT63000

Challenges:

EMC, anti-noise