MAC enhancements for G3-PLC home networks

In this paper, we propose enhancements at the medium access control (MAC) sub-layer for the G3-PLC technology. In particular, we develop a convergent network, consisting of different network devices, to easily integrate G3-PLC in Ethernet local area networks (LANs). The proposed network leads to coverage and throughput improvements for in-home/building applications. Furthermore, since the G3-PLC medium access control (MAC) scheme is based on carrier sense multiple access (CSMA), its performance decreases with the increasing number of network nodes. To overcome this problem, we propose to implement a contention-free MAC scheme based on time division multiple access (TDMA). In particular, we optimize the beacon-enabled mode of the IEEE 802.15.4 standard. The convergent network performance is evaluated using an OMNeT++ simulation platform. Numerical results show considerable performance improvements in different network configurations.