Linear and periodically time-varying PLC channels estimation in the presence of impulsive noise

This work aims to analyze and discuss the performance of channel estimation techniques based on OFDM pilot signals, applied to data transmission over PLC (power line communication) channels. PLC channel is modeled as linear and periodically time-varying (LPTV), which presents an additive impulsive Gaussian-like noise (AIGN). Non-adaptive channel estimators, such as Least Square and Transform Domain associated with channel equalizers based on minimum mean squared error criterion and adaptive ones, such as LMS and RLS are investigated. Simulation results indicate interesting research directions to improve estimation techniques based on pilot signals when LPTV PLC channels are corrupted by AIGN, such as i) adaptive channel estimation techniques suffer considerable performance degradation due to periodically-stationary behavior of PLC channel, and ii) the periodically-stationarity of PLC channel can causes more performance degradation than the impulsive noise.