Noise Modeling and OFDM Receiver Design in Power-Line Communication

Electromagnetic interference, man-made noise, and multipath effects are the main causes of bit errors in power-line communication. In this paper, it is experimentally demonstrated that the power-line noise distribution is non-Gaussian below 12 MHz, and close to Gaussian in the 12–50 MHz range. The noise-amplitude distribution of each individual frequency in the spectrum is analyzed and the generalized Gaussian distribution (GGD) is introduced as a suitable noise model across the spectrum. Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) with convolutional coding and soft-Viterbi decoding is adopted to design a GGD-optimal communication system. Simulations demonstrate the performance improvement offered over the Gaussian-optimal receiver. The channel simulations are verified through measurements.