Impulse noise mitigation based on computational intelligence for improved bit rate in PLC-DMT

This paper introduces a modified version of the discrete multi-tone transceiver (DMT) to increase the data rate in broadband power-line communications (PLC). Basically, a computational-intelligence technique trained by a second-order optimization method is applied to mitigate the high-power impulse noise, while the DMT copes with the severe intersymbol interference observed in power-line channels. The masking of the impulse noise enhances the signal-to-noise ratio in each DMT subchannel. As a result, a high number of bits can be allotted to each subchannel for a given error probability. The simulation results reveal that the proposed PLC-DMT solution outperforms, in terms of the data rate, traditional PLC-DMT over different environments, especially in the presence of additive high-power impulse noise.