Advanced signal processing for PLCs: Wavelet-OFDM

There are today broadband power line modems available in retail stores that are based on either conventional OFDM or on Wavelet-OFDM. However, the comparison of these two multicarrier modulation techniques in the specific context of power line communications has been seldom addressed in the literature. In this paper, OFDM and Wavelet OFDM are compared by focusing on two important aspects: transmission efficiency and spectral leakage. It will be shown that, for the case of the power line channel, Wavelet OFDM offers substantial advantages over conventional or windowed OFDM.