Increasing the Effective Range of Smart Meter Home Area Network

In this letter, we present a potential novel solution to increase the transmission range of the home energy network of electricity smart meters. Conventionally, smart meters use low-power radio technologies and suffer from high signal attenuation as the signal is propagated through multiple radio-absorbing walls in a property. This limits the range of the radio link between the meter and connected devices, such as communications hubs, smart appliances, and in-hand displays. The potential solution presented in this letter uses the observation that at high microwave frequencies, the ac mains distribution cables can act as a low-loss ‘‘leaky feeder’’ cable so enabling signal to be distributed to each room more efficiently than directly via through the air. This letter reports on the testing of this concept for the first time in five properties of various construction types. The results demonstrate a good validity of the proposed method.