Using the Wireless and PLC Channels for Diversity

Performance of indoor home networks can be improved by simultaneous use of wireless and powerline communication (PLC) channels. A narrowband model representing an OFDM subcarrier is used to analyze the performance of several diversity combining schemes including optimum combining (OC), saturated metric combining (SMC) and maximal ratio combining (MRC). Results from BER analysis show that SMC achieves good performance in highly impulsive noise and is relatively insensitive to error in noise parameter estimates. Indoor measurements from 3 detached homes show that parallel wireless and PLC channels have a wide, but similar, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) range. Measurement data is used with link throughput analysis to show that wireless/PLC diversity can be used to minimize the likelihood of low throughput links.