Advanced Signal Processing and Computational Intelligence Techniques for Power Line Communications
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Editorial Advanced Signal Processing and Computational Intelligence Techniques for Power Line Communications ´ Vidal Ribeiro,1 Lutz Lampe,2 Klaus Dostert,3 and Halid Hrasnica4 Moises 1 Department
of Electrical Energy, Federal University of Juiz de Fora, 36 036 330 Juiz de fora, MG, Brazil of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of British Columbia, Canada V6T 124 3 University of Karlsruhe, 76131 Karlsruhe, Germany 4 Eurescom GmbH, 69123 Heidelberg, Germany 2 Department
Received 1 July 2007; Accepted 1 July 2007 Copyright © 2007 Mois´es Vidal Ribeiro et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Power line communications (PLC) is defined as data communication over power lines. The main reason to consider the medium “power line” for communication purposes is the extremely high penetration of the power distribution grid in most parts of the world. From urban to remote rural areas, power supply lines reach practically every household and thus are available as potential “carrier” of communication signals. This argument extends to buildings (homes, businesses) and mobile entities such as automobiles, ships, airplanes, or even spacecrafts, where electrical wiring enables deployment of PLC systems for internal communication. The concept of PLC is not new and has been applied by power utilities for almost a century, mainly for sending control messages over medium and high voltage lines. In the late 1990s, with the deregulation of the telecommunication and energy markets in Europe, power utilities became more seriously interested in providing additional services through their lines. However, due to unrealistically high expectations on PLC as “last-mile” solution for high-speed Internet access, together with an unclear regulatory environment, lack of standards, and underestimation of the technical difficulties, the initial enthusiasm gave way to skepticism towards the viability of PLC for fast Internet access. Today, we witness a cautious optimism regarding the future of PLC. This has several reasons. First, PLC is not only a last-mile technology but much more. While broadband Internet access over power lines remains an important application and current wide-scale field trials indicate commercial viability, power utilities, PLC vendors, and academic researchers are working together closely to unleash the full potential of PLC for efficient distribution-grid management and monitoring. Home networking is another major applica-
tion for PLC and various consumer electronics giants are participating in the sophistication and standardization of PLC technology. Deployments of command-and-control PLC systems are expanding beyond classical home automation to, for example, lighting control in industrial premises and airfields, and other markets such as PLC for in-vehicle communication are currently explored. Second, the potentials of PLC are looked upo
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