Mathematical Approach and Implementation of Frequency Mapping Techniques in Power-Line Communications Channel

Abstract

Power-line channel is considered to be a very hostile channel compared to other channels in view of the different types of noise that could exist. Therefore, the choice of the error correcting code and the modulation scheme can play a big role in combating the noise in such a channel. M -FSK modulation has shown its robustness for such a type of channel. Two frequency mappings techniques are presented in this paper. In the first technique, M orthogonal frequencies are arranged in sequences based on the value and the position of permutation symbols, while in the second technique, the frequencies are rearranged based on the sign changes of the Walsh-Hadamard transform (WHT). The obtained M-FSK modulation is combined to codes based on Viterbi decoding algorithms since Viterbi decoder is considered to be the maximum-likelihood decoding algorithm for convolutional codes and codes with state machine representation. A mathematical approach and implementation of frequency mappings is introduced to investigate the performance of the new designed communication system in the presence of permanent frequency disturbances, also known as narrow-band interference (NBI), such as those encountered in power line communications (PLC) channel.