Power Line Communication Method for the Simultaneous Transmission of Power and Digital Data by Cascaded H-Bridge Converters

Power line communication (PLC) enables the interconnectivity and interoperability of distributed power production units in smart grids and microgrids by using existing cabling to monitor and control the overall power system. In this article, a novel PLC method for cascaded H-bridge converters is proposed, which is based on the use of the circuits of the individual power modules for the transmission of both power and digital information. Compared to the existing PLC approaches, the method proposed in this article combines the advantages of applicability to cascaded H-bridge structures with either a dc or an ac output, avoidance of using an additional power amplifier or coupling circuit for the transmission of information and independence from the implementation scale and the type of the power-supplied load. The design of both the proposed data transmitter and receiver units on field-programmable gate array devices is presented in the article. The proposed PLC system has been applied to an experimental prototype of a two-cell cascaded H-bridge inverter. The experimental results verified the successful transmission of telemetry data through the power converter circuit and their retrieval by a receiver attached in the power loop, along with the simultaneous transmission of power to the load.