LDPC coded TDS-OFDM for PLC systems

Powerline communications (PLC) have drawn great interest in recent years. However, most PLC standards such as HomePlug AV use the cyclic-prefix OFDM (CP-OFDM) technology. This paper presents a broadband PLC system using low density parity check (LDPC) coded time domain synchronous OFDM (TDS-OFDM), whose spectrum efficiency is about 10% higher than that of CP-OFDM. With the same bandwidth and the ability to combat the time delay spread as HomePlug AV, this system can provide a maximum throughput of 199.7 Mbps physical layer data rate. Simulations over the measured practical powerline channel in Beijing, China, show that LDPC in the TDS-OFDM system dramatically improves the bit error rate performance, and verify the feasibility and performance of the TDS-OFDM technology for PLC systems.