An OFDM inter-subcarrier permutation coding scheme for power-line communication

Power-line communication offers a networking communication over existing power lines and finds important applications in smart grid, home & business automation and automatic meter reading. However, the power-line channel is one of the harshest known communication channels currently in use and it requires robust forward error correction techniques. Powerful decoding algorithms tend to be complex and increase latency while robust modulation schemes offer lower data rates. The presented work extends the existing narrow-band power-line communication forward error correction scheme of concatenated Reed-Solomon - Convolutional codes in OFDM framework by introducing permutation codes as an inter-subcarrier encoding scheme in OFDM to combat narrowband interference and carrier frequency offsets.