Power line channel measurements and analysis in a cruise ship is the topic of this paper. Applications and benefits that the deployment of power line communication in a ship environment can bring, justify research initiatives targeting the study of channel characteristics. We have carried out a channel measurement campaign over the low voltage power distribution network of housing and public areas in the band 0-50 MHz. The data have been used to study the statistics of the channel, and in particular, of the average channel gain, RMS delay spread, coherence bandwidth. The analysis of theoretical capacity in the band 2-28 MHz (used by state-of-the art PLC technology) shows that it is in excess of 200 Mbps and up 600 Mbps depending on the background noise level and power line network segment of the ship. The capacity increases by up to 85% in the band 2-50 MHz. Furthermore, the three-phase electrical distribution allows the exploitation of multiple-input multiple-output transmission which can double the capacity as the results in this paper show.

The characterization of the wireless channel on board a cruise ship is considered by means of frequency domain measurements of received power and propagation attenuation. This electromagnetic environment is rather new and is characterized by abundance of reflecting surfaces and diffracting elements, so that a significant difference with respect to more common residential and office environments has been found. The measurement setup is simple and easy to position and operate. The results consist of corrected path loss laws for halls and corridors and the quantification of scattering influence.