Designing Reliable Powerline Communications

By Ashish Garg, Product Marketing Manager & Angad Singh Gill, Product Marketing Engineer, Cypress Semiconductor Corp. Powerline Communication (PLC) is a communication technology that uses powerlines as its communication medium. The data travels over the same powerline that provides electricity, thus allowing the existing powerline infrastructure in homes or cars to be used for the purpose of transporting data without adding new wires. PLC technology is experiencing a period of rapid growth and finding its way into multiple applications and market segments including smart grid, lighting control, solar panel monitoring, energy metering, in-home video distribution, and electric cars. The global push for energy conservation is driving the need for intelligently communicating with energy generation and energy consuming devices. PLC offers a unique no-newinfrastructure approach to enabling rapid deployment of smart energy management technology around the world. Unlike wireless solutions, PLC does not have limitations of line-of-sight and short transmission range. PLC is also a cost-effective and easy-to-install technology for many applications. Today, systems designers can source PLC devices from more than ten different semiconductor vendors. Many of these devices are optimized for particular applications and markets. With such a wide range of choices, developers need to understand the factors that affect the performance and reliability of PLC systems and the different options for overcoming common design challenges. Any communication system consists of four major components: 1. 2. 3. 4. Transmitter Receiver Communication medium and The signal itself.

As mentioned earlier, the communication medium in PLC is the powerline. Figure 1 shows a block diagram of a generic Powerline Communication system. The Transmitter modulates and injects the signal into the powerline. The receiver at the opposite end of the link demodulates the signals and retrieves the data. The impedance of the powerline attenuates the signal as it travels to the receiver. Any noise in the medium also corrupts the signal as it moves through the powerline.

Figure 1: Block diagram of a typical Powerline Communication System. Impedance of the Powerline attenuates the transmitted signal. Noise in the line can significantly affect the signal.
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Having briefly covered the basics, let us dive one-by-one into the factors that affect the performance and reliability of a PLC system. These factors include: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Transmit signal strength Noise on the powerline Impedance of the powerline network Network Protocol Receiver sensitivity

Recommendations regarding each of these factors are made along the way. In the end, multiple phases and system costs are also discussed.

Transmit (Tx) signal strength

A stronger Tx signal implies more signal power across the line. Stronger signals are less prone to the corrupting effects of noise on the powerline and are able to travel farther. Tx signal strength also affects the power consumption of the PLC node since the more signal energy injected into the line, the more energy the node consumes. In the best of all possible worlds, developers would increase the signal strength of the transmitter until they achieve the best performance and power consumption over the powerline. However, Tx signal strength is tightly controlled by organizations like the FCC in North America and the CENELEC in Europe. The FCC and the CENELEC also regulate the harmonics that can be injected by the main Tx signal into the powerline. The logic behind these regulations is to prevent signals on different frequency bands from corrupting one another. When selecting a PLC device, check that it meets the Tx signal strength requirements for your target market. It should also be compliant with standards set by FCC and CENELEC. Ideally, the Tx gain should be configurable so that you can tune the Tx signal strength based on the rest on the system. Additionally, confirm how much energy the PLC node consumes to achieve the best possible Tx signal strength as required by FCC and CENELEC. Of course, less is better.

Noise on the powerline

Once the Tx signal has been injected into the powerline, its integrity is dependent upon the amount noise on the line stronger noise does greater damage to the signal. Noise on the powerline can come from multiple sources. Simplistically, noise on the line can be divided into two types: impulse and continuous. Impulse noise is unpredictable and occurs in bursty sequences, as shown in Figure 2. This type of noise can, for example, come from a blender that is switched on in the kitchen. It can be difficult to design a system that can tolerate the unpredictability and magnitude of impulse noise without compromising its data rate. More often than not, this type of noise completely obliterates any data packets on the line.

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Figure 2: Impulse noise on the Powerline Continuous noise, on the other hand, is more predictable than impulse noise (see Figure 3). Continuous noise is usually a function of the quality of the powerline installation in a neighborhood, city, or a country. As the powerline infrastructure was originally designed to efficiently carry power and not data, little attention was paid to noise levels on the line when powerlines were installed. Depending upon what part of the world a system operates in, powerlines can be more or less noisy.

Continuous Noise
Time

PLC Signal
Figure 3: Continuous noise on the Powerline To enable robust communication over the powerline, the Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) needs to be maintained above a certain threshold. If there is high-amplitude, continuous noise within the frequency range of the PLC system, it is best to isolate that noise either by moving it away from PLC receivers, or by adding a blocking inductor to the power supply of the noisegenerating equipment to attenuate that noise frequency below the SNR of the receiver. There are several other techniques that developers can use to overcome the effects of noise: Bidirectional communication: If a PLC system communicates in only one direction, then there is no way for the transmitter to know whether communication was successful or not. This was one of the biggest shortcomings of the original unidirectional X10 PLC technology. Bidirectional communication allows the receiver to send an acknowledgement after successful reception of data. In case an acknowledgment is not received, the transmitter can take corrective action. Retries: In a bidirectional system, communications can be confirmed through an acknowledgment mechanism: if the transmitter does not receive an acknowledgement from the receiver, then an intelligent transmitter can re-send data packets. Retries, if automatically built into a PLC implementation, can be a very powerful means for achieving high reliability communication over the powerline. Error detection: Even after a data packet is successfully received, it needs to be checked for any damage by noise. This is where Cyclic Redundancy Checks (CRC) comes into play. CRC enables the receiver to detect any errors in data packets as they are received. When an erroneous data packet is detected, the receiver can choose to either request the transmitter to resend the packet or to not acknowledge the data (with the result of triggering an automatic data packet retry by the transmitter). Adaptive gain control: To overcome the effects of continuous noise, some PLC devices implement adaptive gain control (AGC). Using AGC, the receiver dynamically adjusts its sensitivity above the noise floor so that it can better differentiate between noise and data.

Clearly, the more ways a system can accommodate or overcome noise, the more reliable the system. It is beneficial to have acknowledgement-based bidirectional communication coupled with retries and CRC.

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Impedance of the powerline network

The impedance that a signal sees on a powerline affects the signal power that can be transferred by the transmitter into the powerline. This impedance is dependent upon the impedances of the powerline and of the nodes/appliances connected to it. The impedance of the powerline changes every time an appliance or node is plugged into a power socket. Maximum signal power is transferred when the impedance that the signal sees in the powerline matches that of the transmitter circuit. The greater the difference between these two impedances, the less the transferred signal power and, as a result, PLC performance will be worse. This dynamic change in impedance is one of the toughest issues to address in powerline applications. PLC transmitters and receivers need to be designed to anticipate these impedance changes in the powerline if they are to achieve robust signal performance. Continually matching the impedance of the transmitter to that of the powerline allows maximum transfer of signal while high receiver impedance ensures minimal signal loss on the receiver side.

Network Protocol
A robust and error-free network protocol perhaps has the greatest impact on the reliability of PLC communication. While the system design has very little to no control over physical factors like noise and powerline impedance, a powerline-optimized network protocol implementation can significantly improve PLC performance. A network protocol can make or break a PLC system and it is possible to achieve 100% successful PLC communication with the right network protocol. Consider that most PLC applications support tens to hundreds of nodes connected on the same powerline. The network protocol arbitrates data packets between nodes so that all nodes can share the available bandwidth on the line fairly and no one node can monopolize the communication channel. The definition and implementation of the network protocol also determines the maximum number of PLC nodes that can communicate over the same line. Most techniques discussed in the Noise section of this article can be built into the network protocol; for example, acknowledgement, retries, and CRC. This way the application running on the PLC system will not have to worry about implementing these techniques. From an application standpoint, the software will receive only valid PLC data. Some PLC devices come with a built-in network protocol while others require developers to define, code, and manage their own. If the protocol cannot be run on the PLC device itself, developers will need to take into account having to specify another processor to implement the protocol. Another important aspect is interoperability and co-existence. The CENELEC-mandated Carrier Sense Multiple Access (CSMA) implementation (see Figure 4) ensures that one set of PLC nodes can co-exist with those of other vendors. With the incredible growth in PLC-enabled devices, this is an important way to future-proof the deployment of PLC devices.

Figure 4: Multiple PLC nodes sharing the same Powerline. The CENELEC-mandated Carrier Sense Multiple Access (CSMA) scheme ensures that multiple nodes can co-exist on the same Powerline and efficiently share access.

Receiver (Rx) sensitivity

Depending upon the powerlines characteristics, loads, and segment lengths signals have to travel over the powerline, signals can be significantly attenuated by the time they are picked up by the receiver. A receiver that has a high Rx sensitivity (i.e. it can reliably receive very low signal strengths) can pick up even lower strength signals from the line, thereby increasing the
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effective communication distance. However, high sensitivity is not always good. A high-sensitivity receiver, for example, will not only detect smaller signals, it will also detect smaller noise in the channel. Therefore it is important to have a mechanism in place that will prevent the receiver from confusing noise for the actual signal. Adaptive Gain Control (AGC) is one such mechanism for achieving this. As discussed earlier, using AGC the receiver dynamically adjusts its sensitivity above the noise floor so that it can better differentiate between noise and data.

Multiple Phases
Most buildings have multiple phases produced by a transformer which is rated for 50Hz/60Hz. As most PLC signals operate at a much higher frequency, there is a possibility that the signal will get filtered out at the transformer and consequently not be able to jump to the adjacent phase. This adjacent phase may be in the same house. This creates a potential problem where the PLC signal cannot reach all sockets in a house or structure. However, this is completely dependent upon the design of the transformer. The way to solve this problem is to couple the PLC signal from one phase to another. Two well-known techniques to do this are: 1. Capacitive phase coupling: This technique requires connecting a capacitor across the phases at the transformer, and this will allow the PLC signal to pass. Physical access to the transformer is required here and in many circumstances this approach might not be feasible or cost-effective. Wireless phase coupling: In this technique, the PLC data is transmitted from one phase to another using two Radio Frequency devices one connected to each phase. These two devices can be connected to any sockets on the phases, as long as they are in range of each other. Physical access to the transformer is not required to implement this technique.

2.

Wireless coupling is much less intrusive to the transformer and is thus preferred over capacitive coupling, in most cases. Some PLC devices come bundled with wireless coupling options while others leave it to designers to develop a way to couple phases on their own.

System Cost
While reliability is a key design factor, PLC architectures must also minimize system cost in order to compete in the market. When adding PLC to a system, some designers aggressively negotiate chip price while ignoring the overall cost of adding PLC functionality to their systems. A more holistic look at PLC cost adder to a system is warranted. PLC costs can be broadly categorized into bill of material (BOM) costs and development costs as broken out in Figure 5. The BOM cost includes the cost for all the ICs and components that make up the system including PLC and other system relevant functions. Development cost, on the other hand, includes the cost of other resources, including: Network Protocol implementation Board and layout design Certifying product to FCC, CENELEC, and UL standards.

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SystemCost

BOM

Development

PLC

System Functions

Network Protocol

Powerline ReferenceDesign

Certification

MODEMIC

Energy Measurement

FCC

Network ProtocolIC

DisplayLCD

CENELEC

CouplingCircuit

UL

Filtering& Amplification Circuit

Figure 5: Costs involved with implementing a PLC solution Developers can reduce system cost by integrating as many of these costs into the fewest number of devices. For example, a device that provides MODEM and network protocol support on the same IC will be less expensive than implementing both using separate ICs (i.e., one each for the MODEM and Network Protocol). Integrating other system functions, such as energy measurement, LCD driving, temperature sensing, and load control, also lowers system cost while reducing integration and development complexity (Figure 6). Many PLC controllers are also available with reference designs certified to CENELEC, FCC, and UL standards to further accelerate development. Overall, the more complete a PLC device is, the less time and money required to implement PLC.

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Cypress CY8CPLC20 Application Layer

Energy Measurement LCD Drive Temp. Sense

Network Protocol
CSMA Retries ACK

Physical Layer MODEM

FSK MODEM Rx Sensitivity Tx Signal Strength

Amplification & Coupling Circuit

Powerline 110VAC-240VAC or 12VAC/DC-24VAC/DC

Figure 6: PLC device (Cypress CY8CPLC20) with integrated Physical layer MODEM, Network Protocol, and Application layer.

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