New Findings about Multi Conductor Noise in Narrow Band PLC

Abstract: The market projection for Internet of Things (IoT) systems is appealing for the Power Line Communication (PLC) technology. A massive growth and a pervasive presence of these IoT objects is expected in our everyday life. About 20 billion of IoT devices are forecasted to be installed in the next two years. PLC is a compelling technology that could become essential for certain IoT applications. For example, sensor nodes and actuators used in the Smart Buildings domain can be connected through PLC. In this case, the PLC network will work as a backbone for the in-building communication. PLC systems, in this domain, will help to solve or reduce the overcrowded-spectrum problem, exploiting the existing cable infrastructure. Narrow band (NB) PLC is probably the most suitable type of PLC technology for IoT applications. The main reasons are: simple hardware, good coverage, appropriate bit-rate and low cost. Nevertheless, to guarantee reliable connectivity further analysis and improvements should be done. There are such as signal propagation discontinuities, high channel attenuation and noise. Despite the fact that PLC noise is a well-known problem, it still poses several challenges for this technology. This paper aims at adding some new consideration on this topic. This paper describes new results on MC NB noise. The MC noise is measured between the Live-Protective Earth (L-PE) and between Neutral-Protective Earth (N-PE) pairs (L-PE-N configuration), to exploit the symmetries of the channel. The analysis in this paper considers the whole PLC NB frequency spectrum that ranges from 3 kHz to 500 kHz. It considers the noise observed at the two output ports of a given outlet in an in-building network with three conductors.