Performance of power line communication systems with noise reduction scheme for smart grid applications

In this paper, we propose clipping scheme and equalizer as methods to reduce the effects of impulsive noise and channel attenuation in power line communication (PLC) system. Clipping is cutting off the amplitude of the received signal over threshold level without its phase change in order to reduce noise effects. The equalizer compensates for effects of PLC channel. The performance is evaluated in terms of bit error rate (BER). From simulation results, it is confirmed that the proposed clipping scheme has slightly better performance than conventional PLC system. The results of the paper can be applied to PLC systems for smart grid.