Cyclic spectral analysis of power line noise in the 3–200 kHz band

Abstract

Narrowband OFDM Power Line Communication (NB-OFDM PLC) systems are a key component of current and future smart grids. NB-OFDM PLC systems enable next-generation smart metering, distributed control, and monitoring applications over existing power delivery infrastructure. It has been shown that the performance of these systems is severely limited by impulsive, non-Gaussian additive noise. A substantial component of this noise has time-periodic statistics (i.e. it is cyclostationary) synchronous to the AC mains cycle. In this work, we analyze the cyclic structure of power line noise observed in a G3 PLC system operating in the CENELEC 3-148.5 kHz band. Our contributions include: (i) the characterization of noise measurements in several urban usage environments, (ii) the development of a cyclic bit loading method for G3, and (iii) the quantification of its throughput gains over measured noise. Through this analysis, we confirm strong cyclostationarity in power lines and identify several sources of the cyclic noise.