Resource Allocation Management for Indoor Power-Line Communications Systems

Power-line communications (PLC) is recognized as an alternative technology for delivering broadband services in home and small-office environments. Multicarrier modulation is one of the most effective solutions for combating the imperfections of the power-line channel. One of the technical challenges in increasing the potentiality of PLC technology is the utilization of the available spectrum when different users compete for the available resources. Due to the frequency and time-varying characteristics of the power-line network, the various users experience different channel conditions, thus the application of efficient resource allocation will increase the overall network performance. This paper addresses the problem of subchannel and power allocation for indoor PLC networks with multiple links employing power spectral density limitations, and presents an efficient multiuser loading algorithm. The proposed solution encounters both uplink and downlink traffic, guarantees a set of minimum data rates to all users, and allocates the available resources with fairness according to the channel quality of each link. We demonstrate the performance of the proposed algorithm using an illustrative example of a typical indoor network and we examine its effectiveness under various channel conditions