The simultaneous use of wireless and power line communications (PLC) channels provides a convenient method for increasing the coverage and throughput of indoor networks. In this paper, we compare coding diversity and modulation diversity schemes that both utilize parallel wireless and PLC links. The signal to noise ratio (SNR) values used in this analysis are determined by conducting a series of average link gain measurements in an office environment. Measurement results show that both wireless and PLC SNRs have a wide range, but neither type of media is guaranteed to dominate performance for a given link. The empirical SNR values are used in a Monte Carlo simulation to evaluate the possible throughput advantages of coding and modulation wireless-PLC media diversity.

It is often advocated that a solution to the problem of interference to digital subscriber line networks (DSL) from a power line communications (PLC) network is to prevent the PLC networks from utilizing the DSL spectrum. However, this solution will render PLC networks inoperable with the introduction of wide-band DSL technology like G.Fast. We propose utilizing an interference cancelling scheme to ensure the co-existence of DSL and PLC networks within the home environment. A measurement campaign is conducted where a set of 480 measurements are collected within a residential house to characterize the PLC-to-DSL interference environment for two DSL modem installation scenarios. The interference cancelling scheme is based on an adaptive frequency domain interference canceller (FDIC) that utilizes the common mode (CM) PLC interference to estimate the differential mode (DM) PLC interference. The effectiveness of the FDIC, which is insensitive to the non-stationarity of the PLC channel, is demonstrated using analysis that incorporates the measured PLC-to-DSL coupling channels.

Recent advances in power line communications (PLC) have made it popular for in-home networking. This makes PLC an increasingly relevant source of interference for digital subscriber line (DSL) networks within the home environment. This paper presents measured PLC-to-DSL coupling channels for a worst case DSL deployment scenario. We then propose an interference cancelling scheme based on a frequency domain interference canceller (FDIC) that utilizes the common mode (CM) PLC interference to estimate and remove the differential mode (DM) PLC interference. The mean square error (MSE) of the proposed FDIC is derived and compared to the minimum MSE achieved by an optimum Wiener filter. Improvement in the signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) achieved by using the FDIC is also presented. Both mathematical analysis and simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed FCID in reducing the DM PLC interference on the DM DSL signal.

Performance of indoor home networks can be improved by simultaneous use of wireless and powerline communication (PLC) channels. A narrowband model representing an OFDM subcarrier is used to analyze the performance of several diversity combining schemes including optimum combining (OC), saturated metric combining (SMC) and maximal ratio combining (MRC). Results from BER analysis show that SMC achieves good performance in highly impulsive noise and is relatively insensitive to error in noise parameter estimates. Indoor measurements from 3 detached homes show that parallel wireless and PLC channels have a wide, but similar, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) range. Measurement data is used with link throughput analysis to show that wireless/PLC diversity can be used to minimize the likelihood of low throughput links.

Optimum and suboptimum combining is investigated for a 2-branch diversity system containing unique Class-A noise in each branch. Expressions for log-likelihood ratio (LLR) reveal that the optimum scheme can be viewed as a linear combiner which is conditioned on the Class-A state. Bit-error rate (BER) performance curves for BPSK demonstrate that use of a saturated Gaussian metric for low-complexity signal combining results in good performance. However, maximal ratio combining (MRC) performs poorly due to mismatch between the MRC LLR and the LLR for optimum schemes.

Wireless devices are often connected to power outlets in residential data and smart-home networks. As a result, physical layer performance can be improved by using the power distribution tree as a diversity channel. This paper proposes a hardware-efficient, low intermediate-frequency (low-IF) transceiver architecture which allows existing wireless protocols to be used over both wireless and power-line communication (PLC) channels. A signal model for this form of hybrid transmission is presented assuming Rayleigh flat-fading and Middleton Class A impulsive noise in the wireless and PLC channels, respectively. Analysis of maximal-ratio combining (MRC) reveals that detector input noise is also Class A-distributed. Expressions for average bit-error rate (BER) of a BPSK subcarrier show that BER is a function of PLC impulsiveness and significant improvement can be achieved with diversity and PLC SNR > 10 dB. In regions of low and high wireless SNR, BER curves are approximately linear with slope of 0 and -1, respectively. The inflection point between these two regions can be used by transceivers to select between PLC-only and hybrid transmission modes.