Development of a Test Bed for High-speed Power Line Communications

C.K. Lim, *P.L So, E. Gunawan, S . Chen, T.T. Lie, Y.L. Guan
School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering Nanyang Technological University Singapore 639798 *E-mail: eplso@ntu.edu.sg Tel: (65) 790-5026 Fax:(65) 793-3318

Abstract: This paper presents the development of a power line test bed which provides a platform to simulate the 230V power line environment in a controlled and reproducible manner. The target is to communicate data reliably over power lines at speeds of at least I Mbitds with frequency ranging from IMHz to 1OMHz. This test bed is integrated with a power line communication channel, power line couplers, loads and impairment devices for worst case environment simulation. A method for coupling the high-frequency signal onto and from the power line is discussed. The design of digital filters for transceivers using advanced digital signal processing techniques is presented. The digital filters are used to amplify, condition and recover the high-frequency signals which have been attenuated and corrupted by noise at the channel.

communication medium for applications such as Intemet access and multimedia communication, its unpredictable characteristics have been great obstacles to the PLC development.

Keywords: Power line platform, impairment devices, transceivers, coupling circuits, digital filters.

I. INTRODUCTION
The low voltage (LV) electrical power distribution network represents the most attractive medium for high-speed digital communication purposes due to an ever-increasing demand caused by the advances in communication and information technologies. Hence, it will open up the possibility to power utilities to establish widespread local area networks (LAN) for telecommunication services such as Internet access and multimedia communication. However, the LV networks turn out to be rather hostile, unusual and unpredictable channels due to the fact that their design has never involved communication aspects but electrical energy transmission. The LV network is a widely spread network with distribution transformers secondary as the driving force and many loads connected in parallel. In Singapore, each distribution transformer in the LV network supplies electrical energy to about 500 households over 230V lines and with a cable of about 30Om in a ring circuit. The power line and its parallel connected loads are rather dynamic and changing at all the time. In addition to the noises present on the power lines, communication signals transmitted over power lines will experience line impedance, attenuation and phase shift which can vary not only with frequency, but also with time, location and distance. This consequently presents difficulties to system designers when developing and testing their designed communication transceivers. In order to overcome such difficulties, it will be good if the power line communication (PLC) channel environment can be modeled and emulated on a platform in a reproducible and repeatable manner so that the development of the PLC transceivers is feasible. Although the power line is an attractive high-speed

This paper presents the development of a power line test bed which provides a platform to simulate the power line environment. The test bed allows the line impedance and attenuation between PLC transceivers to be adjusted to simulate various conditions typically found in 230V power line network and allows various impairment devices to be added to the test environment, so that evaluation, characterization and tests are performed in a controlled and reproducible environment. It is specifically designed for frequency spectrum of lMHz to loMHz with the data transmission rate of at least lMbits/s, and for frequency under CEBus power line spectrum of 1OOkHz to 400kI-I~ physical layer and medium specification. The hardware layout of the PLC test bed and interfacing technique with the ac power lines are described. A brief overview of a PLC system and the characteristics of power lines are discussed. The PLC transceivers using advanced digital signal processing (DSP) techniques for extracting and recovering the corrupted and attenuated receiving signals are presented.
1 . PLCSYSTEM 1

The proposed high-speed PLC system at last-mile is typically made up of transmitters and receivers or both (socalled as transceivers) at a communication point which are needed for generation and recovery of the high frequency communication signal, and some coupling circuits as shown in Fig. 1. The coupling circuits are used to couple the modulated carrier signal onto and from the power lines without compromising the power frequency 5OHz insulation level. The PLC modem represented by transmitter and receiver block at the sending end (i.e. at the low voltage side of the distribution transformer) in Fig. 1 will convert the information into data packets which are modulated onto a carrier frequency spectrum. The modulated signal is then super-imposed onto the 5OHz power system voltage on the power lines and hence being transmitted. At the receiving end, the information will be reclaimed by a demodulation process. Before the high-speed PLC test bed which represents the typical PLC system as mentioned above can be developed into a reliable and efficient platform, it is important to fully

0-7803-6338-8/00/$10.00(~)2000 IEEE

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understand the characteristics of power lines. The following section will briefly discuss the characteristics of power lines.

Transformer

produced by triacs is as great as that generated by universal motors found in vacuum cleaners. However, the triacs create an impulse noise at every half cycle of power frequency, i.e. noise that is synchronous to power frequency, while the universal motors produce a relatively smooth spectrum, i.e. broadband noise. A corroded wiring junction will have a semiconductor effect in which its nonlinearity induces noise on every half power cycle. One should note that when every device is unplugged, the noise still presents due to the coupled RF signals from surrounding onto the power line.
(0

Compvler

&

User's Premises

.W 9 9

Rg. 1. A typical PLC system

111. POWER LINE CHARACTERISTICS

Studies have demonstrated that the power line impedance is a strongly fluctuating variable, depending on specific loads being connected in parallel to the network at specific times, which could not be controlled by the PLC transmitters and receivers. From [l], the power line impedance is frequency dependent According to Nicholson and Malack [2], the characteristic impedance of the power lines increases with frequency, and the overall impedance of a LV network is resulted from: Impedance of the distribution transformer that increases with frequency. Characteristic impedance of the cables used. Impedance of the devicesAoads connected to the network. Regarding to signal transmission, impedance matching is important since the signal power at the receiver side reaches maximum when the impedance of transmitter, receiver and channel are matched [3], i.e. maximum power transfer. Moreover, a power line has its own multipath effects similar to a RF channel that will cause selective fading and intersymbol interference [4]. The next power line obstacle is the attenuation, which generally increases with frequency. A low pass characteristic with unpredictable nulls (notches) has been observed for all power line cable connections, and thus should be regarded as one of the major properties of PLC at least in the frequency range of above 500kHz [5]. For example, one of the attenuation spectral that has been obtained from a LV network in laboratory environment is shown in Fig. 2.

FIQ

Rg. 2. Attenuation spectral at a LV network in a laboratoryenvironment

The noises in a power line can be categorized to a few classifications as follows: Noise having line components synchronous with power system frequency that consists of a series of harmonics of the 100 Hz fundamental component. The major sources for this type of noise are triacs in light dimmers. Noise with a smooth spectrum which has a relatively flat spectrum can be modeled as band limited white noise. The LV network also exhibits additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN). This kind of noise normally appears for a short period of time and is mostly produced by universal motors. Single event impulse noise which is primarily caused by switching phenomena can be modeled as impulses. It can be overcome by applying an appropriate error correcting code, perhaps combined with interleaving. Non-synchronous noise which is a periodic noise pulses occurs with a frequency other than multiples of the fundamental frequency. The major sources for this type of noise are televisions and computer monitors.

IV. PLC TEST BED SETUP

A. PLC Test Bed Layout

Based on the PLC system at "last-mile'' which has been shown in Fig. 1, the PLC test bed is designed and implemented. The frequency specification that it should operate is from lMHz to l o w , and from lOOkHz to 4OOW if under CEBus power line physical layer and medium specification [6].

On the notoriously noisy power line, the primary sources of noise are the various electrical loads connected to the distribution transformer's secondary (see Fig. 1). It has been shown that the primary sources of noise are triacs used in light dimmers [3] and the switching action of brushes in universal motors of vacuum cleaners. The noise magnitude

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At these signal frequency ranges, both ac test power strips, AC Power'strip A and AC Power strip B are each isolated from the supplying ac power by line filter and 2301230V isolation transformer as shown in Fig. 3. However, the isolation transformers cannot effectively isolate a circuit from noise caused by potentials between various systems and common power grounds [7]. Hence, line filters are added to provide electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) so that the system built is functioning in a desired state in an electromagnetic environment without either adversely affecting other equipments, or without being adversely affected by the environment. Also, line filters are used to reduce the potential of communication signals conducting back into AC Power Strip through the PC power supplies that will reduce the system isolation as it has a quite large input capacitance. Besides line filters, line trap is also used to restrict carrier transmission over the power line to a given line section and prevents the carrier frequency from 'spilling' over to the adjacent sections of the power lines. It offers sufficient impedance to block the high frequency signal from the transmission end to the receiving end through the isolation transformer [8]. Thus, it further improves the signal isolation between the two AC Power Strips and the carrier frequencies will propagate down the power line in a direction that is desired and controllable.
SUPP AC P

and acts with attenuator or other impairment devices to set the impedance of the test power line. The impairment devices are represented by three lOOW light dimmer circuits connected in parallel. Referring to [2,10], the primary source of noise on the residential power line is electrical appliances connected to the transformer secondary, and the noise produced by triacs in light dimmers is one of the greatest yet at low power with long duration. Thus, the triac dimmer module is designed to simulate the use of multiple triac dimmer devices on the power line that will generate noise with frequencies synchronous to power frequency 50Hz. For the worst-case transient noise, the dimmer module consists of three simple triac dimmers without filter circuits. Each triac controls the power to a lOOW light bulb. The setting of the firing angle shall be at l00p.s before the 90" point of the 50Hz waveform for one of the dimmers, the second dimmer is fired at 90" point and the third dimmer at lOOp after the 90" point. This setup will provide a large transient impulse noise at every half cycle of power frequency. A dimmer schematic is shown in Fig. 4.
AC Light Bulb

5k ohms

loow
04008L4

250k
Ohms

HT32
NEUTRAL

1 0 . 1 UF
250V

DIMMER
Notes: 1. The Impairment Device is made of three lOOW Dimmers in parallel. 2. For the worst-case transient noise in the power line, three Dimmers without filter circuits are used.

Fig. 4. Triac dimmer circuit with l O load OW

Fig. 3. Simplified high-speed PLC test bed layout

The PLC channel simulator can be best represented by variable attenuators and notch filters, and its design is related to the attenuation spectral which to be modeled. The variable attenuator, which provides the coupling of the communication test signals between the two ac test power strips, acts as the PLC channel's attenuation. The attenuator provides attenuation ranges from OdB to 8OdB [9] of communication signals between the power strips. The notch filters are used to provide some attenuation with an additional notch at a specific frequency which is commonly found at power line spectral (see Fig. 2). Both of the variable attenuators and notch filters are designed to match 5051 load. The 50Q resistive load on each power strip allows the line impedance be seen as 2551 by the Device Under Test (DUT),

Each transceiver is designed to match a 509 load. The test transmitters, impairment devices and DUTs are connected to the power strips depending on the appropriate tests to be performed for the PLC study. As shown in Fig. 3, the test transmitter is typically the PC connected to AC Power Strip A, while the test receiver is of DUT node connected to AC Power Strip B. The impairment devices are connected to AC Power Strip B so that the receiver performance of the DUT at varying signal levels can be measured. In other words, the performance of the communication module (Transmitter Node and ReceiverDUT Node) or so-called as transceiver can be studied and tested.

B. Coupling Method and Circuit

A passive coupling circuit, based on differential mode coupling involving the live wire as one terminal and the neutral line as the second terminal, is used to couple communication signal onto and from the power lines. The

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way of connecting the power lines to the coupling circuit is based on capacitive coupling which consists of two main components, i.e. a capacitor and a coupling transformer. A simplified coupling circuit equipped with some protection devices is shown in Fig. 5.
SIGNAL AC LINE ZENER

portion consists of an analog band-pass filter and an analogto-digital converter (ADC). From Fig. 6, an echo canceller that consists of subtractor and echo estimator is integrated between the transmitter and receiver portions. Why has it be integrated here? In a PLC system, inevitably echo may be generated due to the reflection of communication signal as a result of impedance mismatching. As the far echo of the local transmitted signal is very much attenuated over the power lines and the receiving portion is somehow connected to the transmitting portion, the near echo of the local transmitted signal is more significant than the far echo. Therefore, the echo canceller is important for separating the echo of the transmitted signal r(n) from the received signal s(n) so that the signal that feeds into the demodulator is the signal from remote that received from the power lines x(n).

POWER LINE COUPLING CIRCUIT

Fig. 5 . A simplified power line coupling circuit with protection devices

The capacitor is responsible for actual coupling of the communication signals [3] as it offers a low impedance path for high frequency signals and blocks the 50Hz power frequency voltage from appearing across the winding of the coupling transformer; while the coupling transformer offers isolation of the test equipment common ground from the neutral of the power lines. In order to prevent any of the high frequency power 'line surges damaging any test equipment connected to the signal idout point of the coupling circuit protection devices must be added [ 111. A Metal (see Fig. 3, Oxide Varistor (MOV) across the live and neutral lines provides protection against very large transients on the power lines, and zener diodes are used to clamp any voltage transients at the small voltage side where the test equipment are connected. A resistor connected in parallel with the coupling capacitor is used to discharge the capacitor when the coupling circuit is disconnected from the power lines, thus minimizing high voltage shock due to large charges stored in it.

B. Echo Canceller and Algorithms

The echo canceller [ 121 is typically an adaptive transversal filter with application of digital signal processing (DSP) using Least Mean Square (LMS) algorithm. This algorithm is selected because it does not require any stationary input data or knowledge of the ensemble statistics as the communication data and PLC characteristics keep changing, and it is easy to be implemented. When this algorithm is used, the convergence rate or performance of the adaptive filter to predict the echo of the transmitted signal will be the greatest consideration, which depends on two major parameters, i.e. step size or loop gain $ and input signal power. The echo estimator is updated with its weight or coefficient parameter wk varied, and the faster the parameter wk is tuned to its optimum, the faster the echo is estimated. If this parameter is varied too rapidly, a significant distortion will be introduced to the signal received from the power line. This distortion can cause so much feedback that an adaptive filter can become unstable. It is therefore necessary to reach a compromise between the update rate and the distortion introduced to the signal. In the power line network, we expect to deal with signals with significant power level variation due to the variation of the power line characteristics with time and frequency. Thus, an adaptive step size which adapts to the power of the input signal seems to be a requirement. Hence, several types of LMS algorithms have been studied by simulation for their suitability and performance. The studied algorithms are as follows:

V. PLC TRANSCEIVERS
A. General Description

Fig. 6. Simplified PLC transceiver layout

The PLC transceivers at both the Transmission (Tx) Node Node of the PLC test bed, and Device Under Test (DUT) which will couple the communication signal onto and from the power line, i.e. at the front-end of a power line modem. The transceiver structure at each end of a PLC system is identical and is shown in Fig. 6. The transmitter portion consists of a digital shaping filter, a digital-to-analog converter (DAC) and an anti-aliasing filter, while the receiver

Unnonnalized LMS or Stochastic Gradient (SG) Normalized LMS (NLMS) Leaky Normalized LMS (LNLMS)

From the simulation, it is observed that both SG and NLMS algorithms have their disadvantages and poor suitability for PLC system as described in the Table 1. Thus, their principles and implementation will not be discussed here.

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Stochastic Gradient (SG) Convergence or adaptation rate for the echo estimation is very slow Echo of the transmitted signal is able to be cancelled off when the weights are at optimum Poor stability

Normalized LMS

WMS)
Convergence or adaptation rate for the echo estimation is faster than SG Significant residual of the echo of transmitted signal still exist even when the I weights are at optimum Better stability

This equation shows the actual constant used to set the convergence stability compromise. In order to further stabilize the filter during arrival of any tones and to prevent any overflows, a leakage factor (Um) is introduced into the update and the final equation will be:

For the case of LNLMS, the estimated echo signal will be determined by the following equations:
N-1

C. Results and Discussions

The functionality of echo canceller, with the emphasis on the transversal filter adaptation, was tested and verified on TISTMS32OC67x DSP EVM platform. Since this platform at meanwhile does not have the capability to connect to the PLC test bed, verifications were performed using software signal generation capabilities. For studying the convergence of the adaptive algorithm LNLMS, test signals from two signal generation routines, representing a reference signal z(n, and the corresponding echo signal r(n), were streamed onto a DSP. After DSP, the results were streamed out to a graphic display. Obviously, this approach is not meant to satisfy real-time constraints. The results of LNLMS algorithm with parameter N=32 and adaptive convergence factor are shown in Fig. 7 and Fig. 8.

k =O

e(n) = s(n) - r-est(n)

where w (n) : weight factor for each FIR (k) parameter at time (n) k z (n) : local transmitted (or reference) signal at time (n) r-est (n) : estimated echo of local transmitted signal at time s(n) e(n) N
(n) : received echo signal at time (n) : echo-cancelled received signal at time (n) : tap length for estimator

If the update for this echo estimator is based on the LMS algorithm:

the U constant can be made relatively small to generate an echo canceller that produces a low level of distortion. The update rate of this filter is proportional to both the reference input (transmit) signal level and the echo signal level, and the filter tends to converge faster for high reference input signal levels. This rapid convergence can be counteracted by normalizing the update rate to the level of this input signal. The echo is proportional to the reference input signal so the normalization can be referred to the reference input signal z(n)*. It is important that one shall not place too much emphasis on individual samples because when there are near zero crossings, the error can be large compared to the signal level, and the signal from the s(n) input is delayed by the echo. To avoid these problems, the estimator update uses the mean input signal level of the z(n) variable rather than the instantaneous signal level. Thus, with the normalization constant [ 131:

Fig. 7 Error e(n) and reference input z(n) signal of echo canceller

Fig. 8 Echo canceller output e(n) and the received s(n) signals

is used, the weight update will be:

in magnitude

spectral

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From the simulation results, it can be seen that the LNLMS s e e m to lead a relatively faster convergence compares to SG and NLMS. Also, putting a leakage in the adaptation tends to force the coefficients towards origin, thus keeping them smaller which will minimize the probability of coefficient fluctuating out of the allowed region towards the least sensitivity. Although the LNLMS produces a smaller magnitude compared to the other two algorithms, it can be overcome by implementing an amplification stage in the DSP. The convergence rate increases with increasing step size. Note that if the convergence factor becomes too large, the filter might become unstable.

VI. CONCLUSIONS
A test bed for high-speed PLC system has been developed and implemented. It is a platform which simulates the power line environment with the worst case transient that can be generated by using impairment devices such as light dimmer circuits. Thus, it offers a controllable and repeatable power line characteristics environment to the PLC developers so that their designed PLC system can be tested and developed to a reliable system. The PLC transceivers has been designed with matching impedance of 50sZ and with capability to drive the power lines at other impedance as well. Currently, the PLC transceiver system with the integration of the echo canceller is under design and construction. The echo canceller will be implemented with the application of LNLMS algorithm because of its stability and ability to provide a fast convergence or adaptation rate to estimate the echo of the local transmitted signal.

J.R. Nicholson, and J.A. Malack, RF impedance of power lines and line impedance stabilization networks in conducted interferences measurement,. IEEE Transactions on Electromagnetic Compatibility, vol. EMC-15, no. 2, May 1973, pp. 84-86. HC Fereira, HM Grove, 0 Hooijen, and AJ Han Vinck. Power line communications: an overview, IEEE Transactions, 1996, pp. 558563. Intellon High Speed Power Line Communications, Intellon Application Notes, Rev. 2, July 1999. Klaus M. Dostert, Power lines as high speed data transmission channels -modelling the physical limits, IEEE, 1998, pp. 585-589. EIA-600.31 - PL Physical Layer & Medium Specification, Electronic Industries Association, Rev. 2-5-95. Bruce C. Gabrielson, and Mark 1. Reimold, Suppression of power line noise with isolation transformers, EMC EXP087, May 1987. An American National Standard IEEE Guide for Power Line Carrier Applications, ANSVIEEE Standard 643-1980. January 1981. Torsten Waldeck, Michael Busser, and Klaus Dostert, Telecommunication applications over the low voltage power distribution grid, IEEE Transactions, 1998, pp. 73-77. Gerhard P Hancke, and Deon Very, Etectrical load monitoring and control in the domestic environment, IMTC, H a m , May 1994. Surge Protection Techniques for Power Line Communications, Intellon Application Notes, Rev. 2, January 1999. Michael L. Honig, and David G. Messerschmitt, Adaptive filters structures, algorithms and applications, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1985. Implementation of Echo Control for ITU G.165DECT on TMS320C62xx Processors, Texas Instruments Application Report, August 1999.

IX. BIOGRAPHIES
Lim maduated from Nanyang Polytechnic (French-Singamre Institute), Siigapore in 1994 and- joked ST Microelectronics Kvate Limited, Singapore, as an Assistant Engineer. He left this company in 1996 to further his studies and received his B.Eng. degree with Erst Class Hounours in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore in 1999. He is now pursuing a M.Eng. degree. His research interest is power line communications.
& Power Company Limited, Hong Kong, as a General Assistant Engineer in 1980 and later as Second Engineer working in ?he field of power system protection. He left this company in 1991 to further his studies in the U.K. He received his B.Eng. degree with First Class Honours in Electrical Engineering f o the University of Warwick in 1993, rm and his Ph.D. degree in Electrical Power Systems from Imperial College, University of London in 1997. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. His main research interests are power system dynamics, stability, control, FACTS and power line communications in LV distribution network.

VII. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support provided by Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

PA. So joined China Light

VIII. REFERENCES
[l] R.M. Vines, H.J. Trussell, K.S. Shuey, and J.B. ONeal, Impedance of residential powerdisuibution circuit, IEEE Transactions on Electromagnetic Compatibility, vol. EMC-27, no. 1. February 1985, pp. 6-12.

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