A systematic method of probing channel characteristics of home power line communication network

This paper presents a systematic method of probing channel characteristics and communication reliabilities of home power line communication network applied to the Internet accessed control of home appliances. The effects of the three performance deteriorating factors, i.e., additive noise, channel attenuation, and intersymbol interference, can be systematically measured by applying the channel probing waveform in the frequency range from 100 kHz to 450 kHz. Probability of bit error is derived with the probed channel parameters of the signal attenuation, noise and signal-to-interference ratio read in the frequency domain. The agreement between the derived probability of bit error and the measured probability of bit error supports the validity of the proposed approach of probing home power line channel characteristics. The experimental results performed with the constructed testbed applying the proposed channel probing method also support the feasibility of commercially deploying the PLC modem installed home appliances and their services for the Internet accessed home automation.