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Smart meters (SMs) are key components of the smart grid (SG) as they gather electrical usage data from residences and businesses.Home area networks (HANs) are used to provide two-way communications between SMs and devices within a building such as appliances. This can be implemented using power line communications (PLCs) on home wiring topologies. In this thesis, a HAN PLC channel model is designed based on a split-phase power system which includes branch circuits, a panel with circuit breakers and bars, a secondary transformer and the wiring of neighboring residences. A cell division (CD) method is employed to construct the channel model. Further, arc fault circuit interrupter (AFCI) and ground fault circuit interrupter (GFCI) circuit breaker models are developed. Several PLC channels are presented and compared with those obtained using existing models. PLC communication systems are affected by noise, thus a noise model is developed which is comprised of background and impulse noise. This noise model can be used to obtain the noise power spectral density (PSD) at receivers in the wiring topology. / Graduate