Coded narrowband transmission over noisy powerline channels

Powerline communication (PLC) channels present one of the harshest environments for efficient data transmission. In particular, asynchronous impulsive noise has been known to be one of the strongest impediments to error-free transmission over PLC channels. Most work aimed at ameliorating the degradation due to impulsive noise considers the noise impulses to be independent. In a realistic PLC channel, however, this is rarely true. This paper is concerned with the performance limits on communication over powerline channels where the noise has memory and is modeled using a partitioned Markov chain (PMC) that has been found to be well suited to describe the bursty nature of impulses of the low voltage PLC channel. In particular, expressions are derived for the cutoff rate and the bit error rate of a convolutionally coded narrowband system. They are then verified by comparing with simulation results employing typical PLC parameters, proving the utility of the expressions as a design tool.