Multihop transmission in power line communication networks: analysis and distributed space-time coding

In this paper, we consider transmission in relatively wide-stretched power line communication (PLC) networks, where repeaters are required to bridge the source-to-destination distance. In particular, it is assumed that each network node is a potential repeater and that multihop transmission is accomplished in an ad hoc fashion without the need for complex routing protocols. In such a scenario, due to the broadcasting nature of the power line channel, multiple repeater nodes may receive and retransmit the source message simultaneously. It is shown that, if no further signal processing is applied at the transmitter, simultaneous retransmission often deteriorates performance compared to single-node retransmission. We therefore advocate the application of distributed space-time block codes to the problem at hand.