The characterization of hybrid PLC-wireless channels: A preliminary analysis

Abstract

This work aims at measuring, characterizing, and analyzing hybrid channels for mobile data communication with power line communication (PLC) technologies. These channels denote the concatenation of power line and wireless as only one channel. A measurement setup and OFDM-based technique for channel estimation were applied to carry out a measurement campaign of hybrid channels in the PLC → wireless and wireless → PLC directions. Preliminary results as well as analysis when estimates of the hybrid channels cover the frequency band between 1.7 up to 100 MHz are presented. The attained results reveals that these hybrid channels are very challenging ones. Also, they could be useful for data communication if more investigation concerning the PLC coupling device, the antenna geometry, and theoretical formulation for the signal propagation through the hybrid channel is deeply investigated.