On the Diversity of Hybrid Narrowband-PLC/Wireless Communications for Smart Grids

Narrowband powerline communications (NB-PLC) and unlicensed wireless communications are two leading communications technologies for the emerging smart grid applications. The channel and noise statistics experienced by powerline and wireless transmissions are independent and of a non-identical nature. In this paper, we exploit the diversity provided by the simultaneous transmission of the same information signal over powerline and wireless links to enhance the overall system reliability. In particular, we propose efficient techniques to combine the received signals of the NB-PLC and wireless links for both coherent and differential modulation schemes while considering the impulsive nature of the noise on both links. In addition, we derive closed-form expressions for the average bit-error-rate of the proposed combining techniques. Furthermore, we present simulation results that quantify the performance gains achieved by our proposed receive diversity combining techniques compared with conventional combining techniques.