1
A Study of HomePlug AV Standard
Prasad S. Joshi
Abstract — Homeplug AV is a follow-up to HomePlug
1.0 standard released by HomePlug Powerline Alliance.
HomePlug AV is an improvement over HomePlug 1.0 in a
way that its objective is to distribute Audio/Video content
within the house while the main objective of Homeplug 1.0
was to distribute broadband internet access in homes.
In this paper I will present a critical study of HomePlug
AV standard by discussing features of MAC and PHY
layers of HomePlug AV standard. The comparison of
turbo codes and LDPC codes is made. Finally the working
of Wavelet based OFDM is studied.
Keywords — Standards and Regulations; Powerline
Communications; Multimedia Communications;
I. INTRODUCTION
T HE PLC channel is known to be plagued by various
noise an interference sources which make reliable high
speed communication a challenge. The HomePlug 1.0 system
provided theoretical maximum application throughput of
about 8 Mbps, with a typical maximum in practice of 5-7
Mbps quite adequate for many data-centric LAN applications.
Although it is not optimized for multimedia communication,
HomePlug 1.0.1 systems could also support Voice over IP
(VOIP), as well as IP Television (IPTV) using some variant of
now popular buffered streaming mechanisms.
Thus from above it is quite clear that while HomePlug is
ideal for data centric applications, it is not suited for the new
multimedia technologies like HDTV. These applications
demand various new requirements over HomePlug 1.0 such as
higher data-rates, very low error frame rates as well as an
upper bound on QoS parameters such as latency, jitter which
are addressed in HomePlug AV.
The figure below shows one of the typical applications of
HomePlug AV.
Through HomePlug AV entertainment electronics
equipment such as TVs, hard-disk recorders, set-top boxes or
hi-fi systems can be just as easily connected to networks as
home servers or computers.
The rest of paper is organized as follows - Section 2 and 3
discuss the features of PHY and MAC layers of HomePlug
AV standard with special attention given to PHY layer, in the
light of new restrictions imposed which we discussed above.
Section 4 presents the comparative study of Turbo codes and
LDPC codes. Section 5 deals with the study of wavelet based
OFDM systems. Section 6 concludes the paper with
suggestions for future work.
II. PHY LAYER
There are different factors which affect the design choices
such as attenuation, multipath, time variations, noise. CDMA
system is ruled out because of near-far effect possibly due to
high attenuation. This in turn makes it hard to implement echo
cancellation. The impedance mismatches between different
points in power line networks cause reflections and multipath
with average delay spreads between 1 to 2µs. While the power
line channel can be modeled as time-invariant compared to the
length of a typical packet (1-2ms), time-variations do occur on
the power line channel in two distinct ways that affect channel
adaptation. Long-term changes occur when electrical devices
are connected or disconnected from an outlet, causing step
changes in the impulse response characteristics, and some
periodic channel variation is common with the 60Hz line cycle
due to switching power supplies, or dimmer switches causing
periodic impulsive spikes. PHY Design for the PLC channel
must also contend with an ever present and varied set of PLC
noise sources such as halogen and fluorescent lamps,
switching power supplies, brush motors, and dimmer switches,
to name a few. In this regard it should be noted that a
multimedia PLC design should recognize and exploit the
known cyclic variation of noise within the powerline cycle,
with the best signal to noise ratio occurring near the zero
crossings of the cycle.
A. The Use Of OFDM
A common approach appropriate for the physical
characteristics of the PLC channel outlined above is to use
Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM).
OFDM is favored because it allows precise frequency domain

adaptation of the transmitted waveform, and also allows easy
mitigation (via insertion of a guard interval) of the delay
spread with little overhead provided a long enough symbol
length. In USA, FCC regulations limit the frequency range for
power line transmissions to 1.8-30MHz, and the existence of
amateur radio bands causes additional gaps in this frequency
range. In other parts of the world regulatory bodies impose on
power line communication systems to have an adaptable
transmit spectrum. In conjunction, these restrictions led to the
adoption of a long OFDM symbol length for HomePlug AV.
HomePlug AV employs a 3072 point FFT with 1536 carrier
spaced in intervals of 24.414kHz from DC to 37.5MHz. This
creates an OFDM symbol length of 40.96 µsec, which is long
enough so that the symbol can undergo time-domain shaping
without the addition of too much overhead, and without severe
performance degradation. Time-domain pulse-shaping is
applied to OFDM symbols to contain their frequency shape
much more than the typical sin(x)/x, thus frequency notches
can be created in the transmit PSD by merely turning off
carriers rather than using transmit notch filters. This is
illustrated in following figure where we show the default
transmit PSD mask for operating a HomePlug AV system in
North America – the frequency notches correspond to the
amateur radio bands.
-50
-55
-60
-65
-70
Normalized Power
-75
-80
-85
-90
-95
0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
Frequency [MHz]
x 10
Careful time-domain pulse shaping of the OFDM symbols is
used to provide flexible spectral notching to satisfy different
regulatory constraints throughout the world. By applying this
optimized tapering to the beginning and end of the OFDM
symbols a smoother time-domain transition from symbol to
symbol is achieved, resulting in a faster spectral roll-off in the
frequency domain. This shaping is possible in the AV PHY
due to the use of sufficiently long OFDM inverse fast Fourier
transform (IFFT) intervals and cyclic prefix (CP) durations.
HomePlug AV also employs multiple CP lengths for inter
symbol interference (ISI) mitigation, allowing it to use a
smaller cyclic prefix on channels exhibiting shorter delay
spread thus minimizing overhead.
2
B. Carrier Modulation
In HomePlug AV carriers can be modulated with BPSK,
QPSK, 8-QAM, 16-QAM, 64-QAM, 256-QAM, or 1024-
QAM, thus allows the system to take full advantage of all
possible ranges of SNRs that a particular subcarrier could
encounter. HomePlug AV also supports bit-loading with a rich
mix of modulations, tailored for each channel such that each
carrier communicates with the fastest modulation that the
carrier's SNR can support.
C. Frame Control
The AV Frame Control (FC) field consists of 128
information bits that are encoded and modulated over one
OFDM symbol. The AV Frame Control symbol has an IFFT
interval of 40.96 µs and an effective (non-overlapped) guard
interval (GI) of 18.32 µs. The long guard interval was chosen
so that time-domain averaging can be used to increase the
symbol signal to noise ratio (SNR). In addition, the frame
control IFFT and guard interval is transmitted at 0.8 dB higher
power that the payload, again to increase robustness. As the
frame control duty cycle is low in typical traffic, this extra
power does not result in any measurable effect on radiated
emissions.
The 128 information bits are encoded at rate ½ using a turbo
convolutional code engine to produce 256 coded bits. These
256 bits are interleaved and then put through an outer
repetition code that copies each bit as many times as is
possible and the bits are mapped onto the frame control
symbol with maximum spreading for time and frequency
diversity. The FC contains information needed by both the
PHY and by the MAC. PHY related contents consist of
delimiter type, Tone Map Identifier (TMI), and length of PHY
Body. Delimiter type is needed for FC decoding, and TMI is
required to demodulate the PHY Body, if present. The TMI is
just a nine-bit index that indicates which Tone Map the
transmitter used to modulate the OFDM symbols of the PHY
3
7
body. It is chosen by the receiver during channel adaptation
and is sent along with the Tone Map to the transmitter. PHY
Body length is needed by the PHY to know how many
symbols to demodulate.
D. HPAV OFDM Transceiver
A block diagram of a HomePlug AV transceiver is shown
below. On the transmitter side, the PHY layer receives its
inputs from the Medium Access Control (MAC) layer. Three
separate processing chains are shown because of the different
error correction coding for HomePlug 1.0.1 Control
information, HomePlug AV Control Information, and
HomePlug AV data.
 3

TX

Frame Frame
Control Control
Encoder Interleaver

1.0.1 Frame Control FEC

Frame Frame Control IFFT Cyclic Prefix,

Diversity Insert
Control Mapper (384, Window &
Copier Preamble
Encoder 3072) Overlap
AV Frame Control FEC
AFE
Turbo
Scrambler Convolutional Interleaver
Encoder

AV Packet Body FEC

Power line
RX

AFE

1.0.1 Frame Control Decoder

Frame Frame 1.0.1 Frame Control
384 Point Control Product
AGC Control Data Out
FFT Demodulator Decoder
De-interleaver

Time 3072
De- Turbo FEC De- AV PB
Sync Point Demodulator
interleaver Decoder Scrambler Data Out
FFT

AV Packet Body Decoder

Frame Control
Turbo FEC AV Frame
Combine
Decoder Control Data
Copies
Out
AV Frame Control Decoder

AV Control Information is processed by the AV Frame
Control FEC Encoder block, which has an embedded FEC
block and Diversity Copier while the HomePlug AV data
stream passes through a Scrambler, a Turbo FEC Encoder and
a Channel Interleaver. The HomePlug 1.0.1 Frame Control
(FC) information passes through a separate HomePlug 1.0.1
FEC. The outputs of the three FEC Encoders lead into a
common OFDM Modulation structure, consisting of a
Mapper, Inverse Fast Fourier Transform (IFFT) processor,
Preamble and Cyclic prefix insertion, and windowed
overlapping which eventually feeds the Analog Front End
(AFE) module that couples the signal to the Powerline
medium.
At the receiver, an AFE operates with an Automatic Gain
Controller (AGC) and a time synchronization module to feed
separate control and data information recovery circuits.
The Frame Control is recovered by processing the received
sampled stream through a 384-point FFT (for HomePlug 1.0.1
delimiters) and a 3072-point FFT (for HomePlug AV), and
through separate Frame Control Demodulators and Frame
Control Decoders for the HomePlug AV and HomePlug 1.0.1
modes. The sampled data stream (which contains only
HomePlug AV formatted symbols) is processed through a
3072-point FFT, a demodulator with Signal-to-Noise Ratio
(SNR) estimation, a De-interleaver followed by a Turbo FEC
decoder, and a De-scrambler to recover the data stream.
III. MAC LAYER
HomePlug AV uses a two-level MAC framing scheme.[1]
Incoming MSDUs are packaged with minimal overhead into
MAC frames, which then form a MAC frame stream. This is
treated as a byte stream by the segmentation process, which
forms fixed-size segments for reliable transmission. Each
segment is given a header and trailer that allow it to be
encrypted, sent, decrypted, and delivered independently as a
PHY Block (PB). The PB header contains sequence numbers
that support reassembly of the original MAC frame stream
from segments delivered out of order. It also contains
information that allows MAC frame resynchronization after a
portion of the MAC frame stream is lost. Each PB is sent in its
own FEC block, and the PB check sequence allows
uncorrectable FEC blocks to be detected reliably. Each PB can
be individually acknowledged using a selective
acknowledgement response, and only the damaged PBs are
retransmitted. This results in a highly efficient framing and
error correction scheme.
Other requirements for multimedia transmission like jitter,
latency, packet loss tolerance are also needed to be addressed
by HomePlug AV. Out of these jitter requirements are met by
synchronizing the clocks of sender and receiver and using
timestamps on MSDUs.
Collisions in the channel prove to be costly as they cause
nodes to lose Virtual Carrier Sense (VCS). This can be
achieved by scheduling the streams at the same part of line
cycle. For this purpose the HomePlug AV uses a centrally
scheduled, beacon-based approach. With periodic beacons,
access allocations can be scheduled so that each stream has a
sufficient number of transmission attempts to meet the latency
and error rate requirements.
A stream must first establish a connection with the Central
Coordinator (CCo), which makes admission control decisions.
The CCo periodically issues beacon frames containing
 4

scheduling information that allocates time to each connection check node. Following figure shows a parity check matrix H1
and to CSMA/CA traffic as well. Allocations may be and its corresponding Factor graph.
persistent or non-persistent, with a common persistence value
for all persistent allocations. Impending persistent allocations 1 1 0 1 0 0
0 1 0 0 1 1
are also advertised, along with the period in which they H1 =
1 0 1 0 0 1
become effective. This mechanism allows stations to miss the 0 0 1 1 1 0
beacon now and then without suffering for it. Since the source
rate may change, and the PHY rate may change, a connection
needs to be able to modify its allocation. The persistent
allocation mechanism is reliable, but cannot respond very
quickly, so non-persistent allocations are also supported.
These allow the CCo to respond within one beacon period to
urgent needs of connections.

CSMA/CA access similar to HomePlug 1.0 is also

supported, and is intended for control traffic and
connectionless traffic.

IV. COMPARISON OF TURBO CODES AND LDPC CODES From [7] we can conclude that LDPC codes perform
as close as possible to the Shannon limit of turbo codes. From
A. LDPC Codes
[8] it is shown that BER of the LDPC coded OFDM is worse
LDPC codes and their iterative decoding algorithm were than that of the Turbo coded OFDM on an AWGN channel,
proposed by Gallager in 1962. LDPC codes have been almost while that of the LDPC coded OFDM is better than that of the
forgotten for about thirty years, in spite of their excellent Turbo coded OFDM on a frequency-selective fading channel.
properties. But recently, low-density parity-check (LDPC)
codes have started to attract much attention particularly in the V. WAVELET BASED OFDM
field of coding theory.
Wavelet OFDM can be explained using the theory of
LDPC codes are defined as codes using a sparse parity check multiplexers [9]. Following figure shows communication
matrix with a uniform number of 1’s per column (column systems by using synthesis/analysis transmultiplexers.
weight) and a uniform number of 1’s per row (row weight),
both of which are very small compared to the block length.
LDPC code is defined by M x N parity-check matrix as (N,K)
LDPC, where K=N-M. Note that the code rate is R = K/N.

LDPC codes can be decoded by using a probability

propagation algorithm known as the sum-product algorithm or
belief propagation. LDPC code have better block error
performance than turbo codes, because the minimum distance
of an LDPC code increases proportionally to the code length
with a high Probability. Such a property is desirable for high-
bit-rate transmission that requires very low frame error
probability. The channel transfer function is represented by ‫ܪ‬௖௛ (‫ )ݖ‬in this
figure. The synthesis filter banks are expressed as
LDPC codes can be represented by a Factor Graph that
contains two types of nodes: the “bit nodes” and the “check ௡ିଵ

nodes” [8]. Each bit node corresponds to a column of a parity- ‫ܨ‬௠ (‫ = )ݖ‬෍ ݂௠ (݇)‫ି ݖ‬௞ 0 ≤݉ <‫ܯ‬
check matrix, which also corresponds to a bit in the codeword. ௞ୀ଴

Each check node corresponds to a row of a parity-check

matrix, which represents a, parity-check equation. An edge And the analysis filters are expressed as
between a bit node and a check node exists if and only if the
bit participates in the parity-check equation represented by the
 5

VII. REFERENCES
௡ିଵ
[1] Afkhamie, K.H.; Katar, S.; Yonge, L.; Newman, R., “An overview of the
‫ܪ‬௠ (‫ = )ݖ‬෍ ℎ௠ (݇)‫ି ݖ‬௞ 0 ≤݉ <‫ܯ‬ upcoming HomePlug AV standard,” Power Line Communications and
௞ୀ଴ Its Applications, 2005 International Symposium on

In general, we have ܰ ≥ ‫ ܯ ≥ ܯ‬ᇱ . In case that ‫ ܯ = ܯ‬′ , the

Volume , Issue , 6-8 April 2005 Page(s): 400 – 404.
[2] HomePlug Powerline Alliance, http://www.homeplug.org.
synthesis/analysis transmultiplexers are called as critically [3] IEEE P1901 Draft Standard for Broadband over Power Line Networks:
Medium Access Control and Physical Layer Specifications.
sampled. Wavelet OFDM is composed of critically sampled
[4] Halid Hrasnica, Abdelfatteh Haidine, Ralf Lehnert, “Broadband
PRCMFB (Perfect Reconstrucion CMFB). In PR-CMFB, the Powerline Communications Networks,” ISBN 0-470-85741-2.
synthesis filters ‫ܨ‬௠ (‫ܨ = )ݖ‬௠௖ (‫ )ݖ‬and the analysis filters [5] Srinivas Katar, Manjunath Krishnam, Richard Newman and Haniph
‫ܪ‬௠ (‫ܪ = )ݖ‬௠ ௖
(‫ )ݖ‬are obtained by cosine modulation of a
Latchman, “Harnessing the potential of powerline communications
using the HomePlug AV standard,” www.rfdesign.com , Aug 2006.
proto-type filter [6] HomePlug AV Specification Version 1.1
[7] D. J. C. MacKay and R. M. Neal, “Near Shannon limit performance of
௡ିଵ low density parity check codes,” Electron. Lett., vol.32, no. 18, pp. 1645
ܲ଴ (‫ = )ݖ‬෍ ‫݌‬଴ (݇)‫ି ݖ‬௞ - 1646, Aug. 1996
[8] Futaki, H. Ohtsuki, T. , “Low-density parity-check (LDPC) coded OFDM
௞ୀ଴ systems”, Vehicular Technology Conference, 2001. VTC 2001 Fall. IEEE
VTS 54th, 2001, Volume: 1, On page(s): 82- 86 vol.1
with linear phase [9] K. Izumi, D. Umehara, S. Denno, "Performance Evaluation of Wavelet
OFDM Using ASCET," IEEE ISPLC 2007, Mar. 26-28 March 2007, Pisa,
ܰ−1 Italy.
݂௠௖ (݇) = 2‫݌‬଴ (݇)cos (߱௠ ൬݇ − ൰ − ߠ௠ )
2
[10] Galli, S. Koga, H. Kodama, N.Panasonic, San Jose, CA, “Advanced
signal processing for PLCs: Wavelet-OFDM”, IEEE International
Symposium on Power Line Communications and Its Applications, 2008.
௖ (݇)
ܰ−1
ℎ௠ = 2‫݌‬଴ (݇)cos (߱௠ ൬݇ − ൰ + ߠ௠ ) ISPLC 2008. 2-4 April 2008, Page(s): 187-192
2 [11] Haniph A. Latchman, K. Afkhamie, S. Katar, R. E. Newman, B. Mashburn,
L. Yonge, “HIGH SPEED MULTIMEDIA HOME NETWORKING OVER
where 0 ≤ ݉ < ‫ܯ‬, 0 ≤ ݇ < ܰ, ܰ = 2‫ܯܭ‬, K is an integer. POWERLINE”
[12] ERKOL. c , GLAVIEUX, A., and THITIMAJSHIMA, P : ‘Near Shannon limit
ߨ error-correcting coding and decoding: Turbo-codes’,Proc.1993 IEEE Int.
߱௠ = (݉ + 0.5) Conf. Commun., 1993, (Geneva, Switzerland),pp.106L1070
‫ܯ‬ [13] Alain Glavieux, “Channel Coding in Communication Networks: From
Theory to Turbocodes” ISBN 1-905209-24-X
ߨ
ߠ௠ = (−1)௠
4

The ݂௠௖ (݇) and ℎ௠

௖ (݇)
are impulse responses of ‫ܨ‬௠௖ (‫ )ݖ‬and
‫ܪ‬௠
௖
(‫ )ݖ‬respectively.

PR-CMFB can be implemented by using a fast DCT

(Discrete Cosine Transform) algorithm. Therefore, wavelet
OFDM can be implemented in low computational complexity.

It has been showed in [9] that Wavelet OFDM can

achieve the approximately equivalent performance of OFDM
with GI by using the shorter preamble as compared to the
original scheme. While on the contrary [10] states that for the
case of the power line channel, Wavelet OFDM offers
substantial advantages over conventional or windowed OFDM
viz. higher transmission efficiency, deeper notches, robustness
to NBI, and lower circuit cost.

VI. FUTURE WORK