Modeling of Impulse Noise for Indoor Broadband Power Line Communications

Abstract

@imc.cce.i.kyoto-u.ac.jpAbstractResidential power line is one of the most attractive com-munication media for in-home networking, since almost allrooms in a house have power outlets. The regulations onpower line communication (PLC) may be eased in Japanand we could utilize a frequency band from 2 to 30MHzin the future. However, many electrical appliances and/orshortwave systems frequently cause man-made electromag-netic interference on indoor power line. This man-madenoise often has impulsive characteristics. We will extendknowledge about impulse noise at indoor power line in thefrequency range from 2 to 30MHz. We measure indoorpower line noise in several environments and apply a de-tection method by chi-square test to the measured noise.Further we model the amplitudes, durations, and interar-rival time of indoor power line impulses. These impulsenoise models are expected to utilize for communication de-sign about PLC.1. INTRODUCTIONIn-home PLC is getting so much attention for in-homenetworking, since almost all rooms in a house have poweroutlets. Therefore a relaxation of the regulations on PLC isdiscussed and we could utilize a frequency band from 2 to30MHz in the future. However many electrical appliancesand/or shortwave systems frequently cause man-made elec-tromagnetic noise on indoor power line. This man-madenoise often has impulsive characteristics. The statisticalmodel of impulse noise helps us a great deal for the designof reliable communication. Therefore many statistical stud-ies of impulse noise have been done not only for PLC [1–3]but for wireless communication [4,5] and digital subscriberline (DSL) [6,7].As an early work, Chan and Donaldson investigated thestatics of indoor power line impulse noise [1]. However,their investigation is restricted to the frequency range be-low 200kHz. Zimmerman and Dostert extended the knowl-edge about power line impulse noise in the frequency rangefromsomehundredkHzupto20MHz[2,3]. Theyclassifiedpower line noise into five category as follows:(1) colored background noise,(2) narrowband noise,(3) periodicimpulsenoiseasynchronoustothemainsfre-quency,(4) periodic impulse noise synchronous to the mains fre-quency, and(5) asynchronous impulse noise.Furthermore,theyproposedastatisticalmodelfordurationsand interarrival times of the asynchronous impulse noise.However, their analysis and modeling was for access PLC,they did not provide any statistical model for amplitudes ofthe impulse noise, and their modeling cannot be applied tohigh speed PLC as the minimum unit of impulse durationswas 80