Coding and Modulation for

Horrible Channel

Presented by:
Balachandra Hyati
1DA07EC014
 contents
Introduction
Channel modeling
Channel frequency respense
Noise
Modulation techniques
Adaptive transmission techniques
Coding
Advantages and disadvantages
Applications
Conclusion
References
Introduction
 Power lines form a potentially convenient
and inexpensive communication medium for
control signaling and data transmission.
 Electric power lines, which have been used

for some time for remote metering and control

and are presently being considered for high bit
rate data services.
Channel moduling
 The modeling problem for PLC(power line communation), which
consists of investigating the characteristics of the power network
as a communication channel is difficult task.
 Adequate models have not been standardized yet.
 PLC channels as shown in figure(1) suffer from a number of
technical problems:
• Frequency-varying and time-varying attenuation of the
medium
• Dependence of the channel model on location, network
topology, and connected loads
• High interference due to noisy loads
• High, nonwhite background noise
• Various forms of impulse noise
 Impulse 50/60 Hz
noise powerwave

To receiver
Time varying

From
system +
transmitter

Colored Narrowband
background noise
noise

Figure 1.Block diagram of a PLC channel

Channel frequency respense
 The channel, assumed to be linear, exhibits notches due to
reflections and cancellations causing narrowband fades.
 PLC channel can be regarded as a multipath environment,
since the frequency response changes when some electrical
device is switched, the PLC channel is time-varying.
 The most widely known model for the transfer function H(f)
of the PLC channel is the multipath model proposed by
Philipps, and Zimmermann and Dostert , which takes the
following form for H(f) in the frequency range from 500 kHz
to 20 MHz:

Noise
The dominant channel disturbances occurring in
the frequency range are between several 100 kHz
and 20 MHz are:
 Colored background noise

 Narrowband noise

 Impulse noise
Modulation techniques
 Single Carrier Modulation
 Spread Spectrum
 Multicarrier Modulation
Single Carrier Modulation
 Single-carrier modulation is an attractive proposition from the
complexity point of view.
 Since the power line channel introduces strong intersymbol
interference (ISI), powerful detection and equalization techniques
are called for.
 The deep frequency notches present in the channel transfer
function prevent the use of linear equalizers, as the noise
enhancement they cause is a serious drawback on a very noisy
channel.
 On the other hand, nonlinear symbol or sequence detectors
exhibit a computational complexity that increases exponentially
with the length of the impulse response, which is considerable in
the power line channel.
Spread Spectrum
 Spread spectrum (SS) techniques cope with frequency-selective
channels by using a code sequence that spreads narrowband signals over
a wider bandwidth.
 SS lends itself to a multiple access technique called code division
multiple access (CDMA), which allows several users, possibly with
different rate demands, to access the PLC channel simultaneously.
 Several methods have been proposed to implement variable-rate CDMA:
• Multimodulation assigns different modulation schemes to different users,
for example, 4-phase shift keying (4PSK) and 2PSK with the same signal
duration.
• Multicode includes a number of “virtual users” transmitting at the same
rate and detected by independent receivers.
• Variable spreading has high-rate users transmitting shorter modulated
signals (hence with a reduced spreading length).
Multicarrier Modulation
 A scheme suitable for frequency-selective channels is orthogonal
frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM).
 Here quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) or PSK symbols are
divided in blocks, and the data within blocks are transmitted
in parallel on many orthogonal subcarriers occupying a subband which is
so narrow that the associated subchannel has a flat frequency response.
 Hence, a frequency-selective channel becomes equivalent to a set of
multiple flat-fading subchannels.
 ISI is cancelled, and equalization of the data with coherent detection
simply amounts to a normalization by a complex scalar, while incoherent
detection does not require any further equalization.
 Each symbol can be detected separately, an approach that can be
extremely successful in preventing errors caused by strong channel
attenuation or noise in specific subbands.
 Hence, OFDM is robust against narrowband
interference and high noise levels.
Continued….

 Information theory states that, in Gaussian channels with ISI, capacity-achieving

Signals have a spectral distribution that follows the water-pouring principle.
 Specifically, optimal modulation consists of transmitting orthogonal frequencies,
each of them having power and information bits loaded in a way that mimics
the result of pouring water into a basin whose bottom is shaped as the reciprocal
of the frequency-dependent SNR.
 The water level to be reached is adjusted to satisfy the constraint on the
maximum average transmit power (corresponding to the total amount of
available water).
 OFDM can reproduce this optimum scheme with some variations; for
example, loading of powers may be given up in favor of adaptation of rates.
 A technique called bit loading may be applied. This consists of using symbols
taken from unequal-size constellations to modulate the different subcarriers. For
this type of optimization to be effective, a feedback channel must provide
channel state information at the transmitter, which in turn requires a slowly time-
varying channel if bit loading is to be made adaptive.
Adaptive transmission techniques
 Adapting Power Level — Through power control, all
transmission parameters are unchanged as the channel varies,
but the transmission level is varied according to the channel
fluctuations.
 Adapting Constellation Size — Adaptive modulation
increases the data transmission efficiency without increasing
the multi-access interference power, instead using a
hierarchy of different constellations of increasing size. By
continuously monitoring the channel state, modulation index
and symbol rate can be varied to adapt the modulation
scheme to the channel SNR.
 Adapting Code Rate — The coding scheme can respond to
channel variations by selecting the code rate.
Coding
 OFDM can be combined with coding by using bit-interleaved coded modulation
(BICM) as shown in figure(2). This links binary coding and nonbinary
modulations in a simple way.

Bit
Encoder Modulator IDFT
interleaver

DFT Remove PLC Add cyclic

cyclic prefix channel prefix

Compute Bit
Equalizer Decoder
bit metric deinterleaver

Figure 2.Block diagram of OFDM with BICM.

Continued….

 The performance of BICM with Gray mapping of bits onto signals comes
very close to the optimum for the AWGN channel, while its structure is
simpler than with coded modulation or multilevel coding, allows a large
degree of flexibility and is especially well suited for fading channels.
 Since OFDM generates a number of parallel independent AWGN
channels, the synergy of OFDM with BICM appears promising.
 In general, it can be expected that for low SNR bit loading will be
necessary, while for higher SNR a higher-order modulation scheme is
appropriate to exploit the capabilities of the system.
 Adaptivity may also be introduced in the coding scheme. For
example, a code may be used to detect transmission errors; if the
transmitter does not receive from the decoder an acknowledgment
that reception of a frame was successful, retransmission occurs.
Advantages and Disadvantages
Advantages
 Power lines form a potentially convenient and inexpensive
communication medium for control signaling and data transmission,
as houses and industrial buildings are coupled to the power grid,
with power outlets available in virtually all rooms where a
communication terminal is to be used.
 It is possible to get high bit rate data services.

Disadvantages
 PLC channel suffer from frequency-varying and time varying
attenuation of the medium.
 Dependence of channel
Applications
 Home networking(LAN):
PLCs can be used in a home to interconnect home
computers,as well as any home entertainment devices
that have an Ethernet port.
 Internet access(broadband over powerlines):
BPLs is the use PLC technology to provide broadband
internet access through ordinary power lines.
 International Broadband Elictric
Communications(IBEC) and other companies currently
offer BPL service to several electric cooperatives.
Conclusion
 Electric power lines are presently being
considered for high-bit-rate data services
because they offer a convenient and
inexpensive communication medium for data
transmission.
 Since the PLC channel is used in a frequency
range it was not originally designed for,
designing a simple modem for reliable
transmission on this hostile channel is a
challenging task.
References
[1] Y.-F. Chen and T.-D. Chiueh, “Baseband Transceiver
Design of a 128-Kbps Power-line Modem for Household
Applications,” IEEE Trans. Power Delivery, vol. 17, no.
2, Apr. 2002, pp. 338–44.
[2] H. Philipps, “Modelling of Powerline Communication
Channels,” Proc. Int’l. Symp. Power-Line Commun. and
Its Apps., Lancaster, U.K., Mar. 30–Apr. 1, 1999.
[3] M. Zimmermann and K. Dostert, “A Multipath Model
for the Powerline Channel,” IEEE Trans. Commun., vol.
50, no. 4, Apr. 2002, pp. 553–59.
[4] T. C. Banwell and S. Galli, “A Novel Approach to Accurate
Modeling of the Indoor Power Line Channel. Part I:
Fundamental Analysis and Circuit Models,” and “Part II:
Transfer Function and Channel Properties,” submitted
IEEE Trans. Commun., Jan. 2003.
[5] Proc. 2001 Int’l. Symp. Power-Line Commun. and Its
Apps., Malmö, Sweden, April 4–6, 2001.
THANK YOU