Capacity Analysis of PLC Systems over Rayleigh Fading Channels with Nakagami- Additive Noise

Abstract

Power line communication (PLC) is an emerging technology for the realization of smart grid and home automation. It utilizes existing power line infrastructure for data communication in addition to the transmission of power. The PLC channel behaves significantly different from the wireless channel; and it is characterized by signal attenuation as well as by additive noise and multiplicative noise effects. The additive noise consists of background noise and impulsive noise; while the multiplicative noise results in fading of the received signal power. This paper investigates the impact of the channel characteristics on the capacity performance of a PLC system over Rayleigh fading channel with frequency-distance dependent attenuation and colored Nakagami-m distributed additive noise. We derive the exact closed-form expressions for the distribution of the instantaneous signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Since closed-form expression of the capacity for channels with non-Gaussian noise is extremely difficult to obtain, we choose to use the lower limit of the PLC capacity to facilitate our analysis. Monte Carlo simulation results are used to verify the derived analytical expressions.