Performances of G3 PLC-RF hybrid communication systems

In this paper the main changes of the new version of the G3 standard are reviewed, especially its evolution to a hybrid system combining PLC and RF. In particular, current simulation results comparing the performance of the system in three AMI (Advanced Metering Infrastructure) use cases are presented. The first one is an environment in which all nodes are PLC and the PLC noise level allows connectivity in all areas of the site. The second one is an environment in which all nodes are PLC+RF and the PLC noise level does not allow connectivity in some areas and the system needs to switch to RF. The third one is an environment in which half of the nodes are PLC+RF and the other half are RF only. This would be the situation of a system with electricity meters, which are hybrid PLC+RF, and gas or water meters, which are RF only. To evaluate their performance, some KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) suitable for these applications are introduced. We will also explain other improvements of the new version such as Broadcast optimization, Cluster forwarding scheme and Adaptive power mechanism.