On the use of PRIME PowerLine Communication in industrial applications: Modbus a first testcase

PLC is the acronym for "PowerLine Communication" and means data communications via power wiring. PLC was initially used for tele-protection and tele-monitoring of electrical substations by means of high voltage power lines, in order to avoid costs of microwave or fiber optic links. More recently, PLC has been also adopted for automatic smart metering. However, only with the advent of low-cost digital devices capable to implement complex modulation schema, the offered throughput has reached performance comparable with traditional communication solutions. In this paper the use of the PRIME standard, classified as medium-speed narrow-band PLC, is suggested for industrial applications. A test bench based on proof-of-concept prototypes has been arranged to verify the feasibility of the proposed approach. Results show performance comparable with many wired fieldbuses. In particular, a Modbus implementation has shown a round trip time of 64ms for a read coil function.