Search Results (7)

In today’s digital age, there is an increasing demand for integrated wireless and wired technologies; however, there is a difficulty in achieving secure and reliable communications within buildings and facilities. This paper presents a proposal for maintaining the infrastructure while expanding it to implement communication technologies with high transmission and reception speeds and high levels of data confidentiality to enhance the operational efficiency of organizations. Three main technologies have emerged as promising solutions for this purpose: Wi-Fi, Li-Fi, and BPL. Despite the advantages that each technology offers, some drawbacks appear in these technologies that affect data transmission. Wi-Fi, Li-Fi, and BPL can be combined to achieve maximum security and reduce noise and interference via the ESP8266 module. This combination could be an important step toward achieving an integrated and secure indoor communication system. The paper provides a comprehensive overview of the three techniques and how they are applied in practice. In addition, OSE, ABPF, and ASBF filters are used to detect and eliminate interference and attack secure internal networks. Full article

This article reviews the basis and the main aspects of the recent evolution of Broadband Power Line Communications (BB-PLC or, more commonly, BPL) technologies. The article starts describing the organizations and alliances involved in the development and evolution of BPL systems, as well as the standardization institutions working on PLC technologies. Then, a short description of the technical foundation of the recent proposed technologies and a comparison of the main specifications are presented; the regulatory activities related to the limits of emissions and immunity are also addressed. Finally, some representative applications of BPL and some selected use cases enabled by these technologies are summarized, together with the main challenges to be faced. Full article

The design and maintenance of a reliable communication system, especially in harsh working conditions for the oil and mining industry, brings many challenges. With the use of a video transmission system, one can monitor the crew and their working environment. Broadband over power line–power line communication (BPL-PLC) seems an ideal medium for such a service, since it enables the use of the existing wired infrastructure for supplementary applications. In this paper, we perform a set of simulations for a dedicated wired medium as well as analyses of a visual data transmission system, designed to deliver video content with quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) and orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM). We investigate a set of video sequences at 480 × 270 resolution under varying network conditions, including signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and bit error rate (BER). We perform a subjective evaluation study of video content transmitted over our simulated communication link. The results of this study may aid parties involved in designing additional services for portable devices and user terminals, including reliable means of contact, surveillance and monitoring. The obtained results may be of particular interest to researchers and professionals related to the Industry 4.0 and Internet of things (IoT) concepts. Full article

AMIs (Advanced Metering Infrastructures) present an important role in Smart City environments, especially from the point of view of distribution and customers, offering control and monitoring capabilities. The use of PLC (Power Line Communication) technology offers a wide range of advantages in AMI, including not needing to deploy an additional communication infrastructure. However, the electrical network was not initially designed for communications, as these networks pose problems depending on the connected loads, such as network impedance variation, frequency selectivity or noise. For this reason, the use of simulators is proposed to facilitate the deployments based on PLC networks, and analysis and diagnosis tools for the identification of problems in operating networks are also required. This paper presents a toolkit for evaluating and analyzing the performance of PLC networks. This toolkit is composed of SimPRIME, a simulator for the evaluation of NB-PLC PRIME (PoweR line Intelligent Metering Evolution) networks’ performance; SimBPL, a simulator for the evaluation of MV-BPL (Broadband Power Line over Medium Voltage) cells’ performance; and PRIME Analytics, a forensics tool that allows diagnosis of communication problems in PRIME operational networks based on traffic traces. The toolkit has been developed throughout several research projects in close collaboration with DSOs (Distribution System Operators) and equipment manufacturers, so they provide solutions to actual problems of these industry key players and have been adapted to facilitate their use. As a result, the tools are accessible through web applications to increase their usability, portability, and scalability. These applications represent the first steps in offering PLC simulation and analysis as a service that could benefit the research community, academia, and industry. Full article

Broadband Power Line communication is considered as one of possible communication technologies for the buildings communication infrastructure in the concept of Smart Building. The possible applications where BPL (Broadband over Power Lines) solution can be used for communication in the concept of Smart Building are Power Quality (PQ) measurement, Electric Vehicle or Micro Grids and Distribution Generation (DG). This article should help to determine clear performance possibilities of BPL for an implementation in Smart Building especially due to a large amount of overhead caused by cybersecurity and the protocol overhead. The possibilities of BPL were measured with five different BPL solutions. The results show a sufficient throughput on the application layer for Smart Building application, because, in the literature, various throughput limits are introduced. According to related work, there are missing measurements on the application layer for laboratory conditions as well as compared with real field measurements. In this article, we also exploit our novel idea of a broadband PLC (Power Line Communication) modem integrated into an electrical outlet. Full article

Broadband over Power Lines (BPL) is considered a promising communication technology in the concept of Smart Grids. This paper evaluates networks based on BPL, with a focus on the impact of repeaters in the linear topology of distribution substations. In large-scale Smart Grids network planning, positions of repeaters have to be carefully chosen. This article should help to determine such positions and limitations of BPL linear topology networks. Laboratory and on-field measurements and their results are presented in this article. Results show the impact of repeater’s deployment for different testing methodologies also with regard to other already presented studies. Measured values and the determined impacts of repeaters are later used as input data for simulation of the linear BPL topology in terms of network throughput with multiple streams and bottlenecks. These occur especially on lines shared by multiple communicating nodes. Furthermore, the simulation investigates the balancing time of multiple data streams throughput. The simulation shows that the throughput balancing can occupy a significant time slot, up to tens of seconds before the throughput of different streams balances. Also, the more data is generated, the more time the balancing time takes. Additionally, the throughput drop caused by a repeater is determined into the range of 35–60%. Based on the measurement and simulation results, lessons learned are presented, and possible performance improvements are discussed. Full article

Application of a high-efficiency voice communication systems based on broadband over power line-power line communication (BPL-PLC) technology in medium voltage networks, including hazardous areas (like the oil and mining industry), as a redundant mean of wired communication (apart from traditional fiber optics and electrical wires) can be beneficial. Due to the possibility of utilizing existing electrical infrastructure, it can significantly reduce deployment costs. Additionally, it can be applied under difficult conditions, thanks to battery-powered devices. During an emergency situation (e.g., after coal dust explosion), the medium voltage cables are resistant to mechanical damage, providing a potentially life-saving communication link between the supervisor, rescue team, paramedics, and the trapped personnel. The assessment of such a system requires a comprehensive and accurate examination, including a number of factors. Therefore, various models were tested, considering: different transmission paths and types of coupling (inductive and capacitive), as well as various lengths of transmitted data packets. Next, a subjective quality evaluation study was carried out, considering speech signals from a number of languages (English, German, and Polish). Based on the obtained results, including both simulations and measurements, appropriate practical conclusions were formulated. Results confirmed the applicability of BPL-PLC technology as an efficient voice communication system for the oil and mining industry. Full article