Estimation of propagation parameters for aluminum busbar up to 500 kHz

The behavior as a power line communication medium of the busbar distribution systems is a needful investigation area as a part of smart grid concept. The channel characteristics of busbar should be investigated for providing power line communication. Transmission line models are given in characteristic impedance and propagation constant. The purpose of this study is to investigate the characteristics of the busbar for CENELEC and FCC band power line communication applications. Thus, S-parameters of 630 A busbar distribution system are measured as two port approach for three combination of phase to neutral connection (L1-N, L2-N, L3-N). An optimization algorithm is used to optimize the extracted frequency dependent characteristic impedance and propagation constant of the busbar. The results show that a good agreement has been achieved between measured and estimates S-parameters.