Narrowband-PLC/wireless diversity for smart grid communications

Narrowband power line communications (NB-PLC) and unlicensed wireless communications are considered as the two leading two-way communications technologies for the emerging Smart Grid applications. In this paper, we propose exploiting the diversity provided by combining the received signals from the NB-PLC and wireless links, where both carry the same information, to provide robustness against the interference encountered on both links. First, we analyze the performance of each link separately in presence of impulsive noise and interference. Then, we study the performance when combining the output signals from both links and compare it to the performance of each link.