Characterization of multi-standard Power Line Communication on low-voltage grid

In the last years, the introduction of distributed energy resources increases the complexity of distribution grid management system, which requires performing communication infrastructures. Moreover, an optimal power management requires a direct data exchange with home and industrial automation and energy systems. A well known technology, the Power Line Communication (PLC), seems to be able to satisfy large parts of these demands. Nevertheless, several PLC solutions have been proposed over the years, each of them satisfying the requirements of specific applications. A measurement method able to characterize the communication performance of different PLC protocols is required due to the increasing complexity of the PLC modern infrastructures. In this work, an approach based on Software Defined Radio has been proposed. This solution is able to characterize several PLC systems, based on different physical modulations, using the same experimental set-up. The characterization of a PLC system, based on DBSK modulation, in a real environment, clearly demonstrated the feasibility of the proposed approach.