Characterization of the potential effects of sub-cycle impedance variations on PRIME v1.4

Abstract

This article analyzes the potential effects of sub–cycle impedance variations on NB–PLC according to PRIME v1.4 in a laboratory setup, where the loads are connected at different locations. First, in order to characterize the impedance variations, some metrics are defined and calculated. Then, the attenuation difference and degradation of the quality of communications are studied. Although the results show that the transmitted signal does not suffer high attenuation difference, the quality of communications is considerably affected if there is variability between the ON/OFF impedance states within the 20 ms period. Besides, higher degradations have been observed when the NIEs generated by these devices are also considered.

Keywords

• Attenuation
• Narrowband Power Line Communications
• Non-Intentional Emissions
• Short-term impedance variations
• Signal to Noise Ratio thresholds