Diversity Relaying for Parallel Use of Power-Line and Wireless Communication Networks

In this paper, the parallel use of power-line and wireless communication networks with multihop relaying is considered for enhancing the robustness and stability of smart-grid communication. We propose receive and transmit diversity relaying schemes for a unified power-line/wireless relay structure. The performance of the proposed relaying schemes is analyzed in an information-theoretic framework. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed schemes provide enhanced performance compared to the separate use of relays in the power-line and wireless channels.