Multiple access techniques for wideband upstream powerline communications: CAP-CDMA and DMT-FDMA

Abstract

This paper compares two multiuser transmission techniques in the context of wideband upstream powerline communications. The first one is based on the combination of CAP (carrierless/amplitude phase modulation) and CDMA, the second one is based on DMT (discrete multitone) and relies on a share of the different carriers among the users. The issue of reception under ideal synchronisation assumptions and a simplified noise environment is addressed. Fractional FIR linear and decision feedback joint detectors are derived. A simple resource (code/tone) allocation method is proposed.