The dissertation thesis focuses on the analysis and modelling of power line communication. In first part of the thesis, a basic information of power line communication are described, primarily principle, advantage and disadvantage. The physical layer of the transmission and the fundament of modelling are described later. In the following section the objectives of the dissertation thesis are specified. Experimental verification of the created models and creating of indoor and outdoor models are one of the major goals of this work. These models approximate the real parameters of the power lines communication with sufficient precision. A detailed analysis of existing and current research in power line communication modeling, especially for the power line models, then follows. Based on this analysis a mathematical description of the models is specified and reference model for different scenarios is designed. The communication channel model, power line model and noise model are designed in own solution part. In this part the main goals, experimental verification of created models and designed of models for indoor and outdoor line were also realized. By merging of individual models, PLC communication system model with all parameters analyzed in detail arise. The analyzed parameters which were previously published, do not contain these parameters coherently. The last part of the thesis gives a summary of the results of these analyzes and discussion of simulation results.

<div>Neuromorphic computing has gained tremendous interest because of its ability to overcome the limitations of traditional signal processing algorithms in data intensive applications such as image recognition, video analytics, or language translation. The new computing paradigm is built with the goal of achieving high energy efficiency, comparable to biological systems.</div><div>To achieve such energy efficiency, there is a need to explore new neuro-mimetic devices, circuits, and architecture, along with new learning algorithms. To that effect, we propose two main approaches:</div><div><br></div><div>First, we explore an energy-efficient hardware implementation of a bio-plausible Spiking Neural Network (SNN). The key highlights of our proposed system for SNNs are 1) addressing connectivity issues arising from Network On Chip (NOC)-based SNNs, and 2) proposing stochastic CMOS binary SNNs using biased random number generator (BRNG). On-chip Power Line Communication (PLC) is proposed to address the connectivity issues in NOC-based SNNs. PLC can use the on-chip power lines augmented with low-overhead receiver and transmitter to communicate data between neurons that are spatially far apart. We also propose a CMOS '<i>stochastic-bit</i>' with on-chip stochastic Spike Timing Dependent Plasticity (sSTDP) based learning for memory-compressed binary SNNs. A chip was fabricated in 90 nm CMOS process to demonstrate memory-efficient reconfigurable on-chip learning using sSTDP training. </div><div><br></div><div>Second, we explored coupled oscillatory systems for distance computation and convolution operation. Recent research on nano-oscillators has shown the possibility of using coupled oscillator networks as a core computing primitive for analog/non-Boolean computations. Spin-torque oscillator (STO) can be an attractive candidate for such oscillators because it is CMOS compatible, highly integratable, scalable, and frequency/phase tunable. Based on these promising features, we propose a new coupled-oscillator based architecture for hybrid spintronic/CMOS hardware that computes multi-dimensional norm. The hybrid system composed of an array of four injection-locked STOs and a CMOS detector is experimentally demonstrated. Energy and scaling analysis shows that the proposed STO-based coupled oscillatory system has higher energy efficiency compared to the CMOS-based system, and an order of magnitude faster computation speed in distance computation for high dimensional input vectors.</div>

In this paper, an introduction of the challenge of High Voltage Power Line Detection and some methods about solving the similar problem are talked about. To get a better result, a sort of new methods is developed for detecting and tracking high voltage power lines in the field of high voltage power line inspection by using Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). With the fast development of automated technology, a solution of real-time detecting and tracking of high voltage power lines can be considered on UAV instead of human work. The usability of Intersection Point Algorithm is the main task for detect the power lines from the preprocessing image. There are many lines located in the preprocessing image in different directions, which get crossing with each other many times. To eliminate the false lines, some invariant features for Intersection Point Algorithm are needed. The intersection points inside of a small region and quite similar directions can probably be considered as the intersection point of power lines. Therefore, three methods are considered for grouping points, which conform to the features of intersection points of power lines. There should be only one concentrated area, which represents both power lines and heading direction of it. Method one is to select the points based on distance of points. Method two is to select the overlap region of the circles based on overlap layers. And method three is searching the overlapped layers by using Sliding Window. Result evaluation in Project APOLI is done with the Hit, Miss, Fail standard.

Power line communication has been around in past decades and gained renewed attention thanks to the demand of high-speed Internet access. With the significant advantages of existing infrastructure and accessibility to even remote areas, power grid has become one of the promising competitors for multi-media transmission in household. However, the power line was not oriented for data transmission providing a rather hash environment. To overcome the difficulties, advanced modulation and channel coding schemes should be employed. In the thesis low density parity check code (LDPC) is employed to reduce the loss caused by various kinds of effects in the channel especially the noise since its performance approaches to Shannon capacity limit. Moreover, OFDM multi-carrier transmission technique is involved which could decrease the inter-symbol interference and frequency selective fading. Nevertheless, LDPC decoding process was designed specifically for the common Gaussian white noise condition, combined with OFDM modulation the system still could not provide satisfying and practicable performance so improvements are needed for the system. The main works of the thesis are as follows. Set up an environment of power line transmission investigating and simulating the channel characteristics; employ multi-path channel model and Class‐A noise model for further developing the improvement algorithms to deal with the selective fading and impulse noise. Two algorithms proposed here are from different perspectives: the first one is modifying initial posterior information for LDPC decoding and the second one aims at suppressing the impulse noise after demodulation. Finally, a few simulations are performed to reveal the effectiveness of proposed methods. As a result, the improved scheme shows a great superiority improving the performance by no less than 5dB compared to traditional system.

Radio frequency (RF) spectrum congestion motivates the search for alternative communication techniques to complement radio systems. Visible light communications (VLC) is an emerging technology that exploits the recent and ever-growing increase in the usage of energy-efficient light emitting diodes (LEDs) to imperceptibly modulate the optical power output of LEDs to enable communication and augment RF networks. Orthogonal frequency-divison multiplexing (OFDM) has been proposed as a modulation scheme for VLC due to its high spectral efficiency, ease of channel estimation and equalization, resistance to inter-symbol interference (ISI) and frequency-selective fading, efficient implementation using the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), and compatibility with RF and power-line communication (PLC) standards that use OFDM. One of the major drawbacks of conventional OFDM techniques is the high peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) of OFDM signals. The peaks of the OFDM signals are clipped due to the limited dynamic range of the LED, which translates the high PAPR of the OFDM signal into non-linear distortion (NLD). This signal distortion causes bit-error rate (BER) performance degradation, especially at high optical signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) typical of indoor VLC scenarios. In this thesis, a new family of modulation techniques, termed spatial optical OFDM (SO-OFDM), is proposed with the aim of reducing the PAPR of conventional DC-biased optical OFDM (DCO-OFDM) by making use of the large number of LEDs typically available in indoor lighting settings. Each LED group signal is a narrowband signal consisting of a small number of subcarriers, and thus has a smaller PAPR than the original OFDM signal. Firstly, SO-OFDM is introduced and its two key concepts of frequency-to-space mapping and spatial summing are explained. Frequency-to-space mapping is achieved by allocating a subset of OFDM subcarriers to each LED. Each LED group signal is a narrowband signal consisting of a small number of subcarriers, and thus has a smaller PAPR than the original OFDM signal. Several design variations of the subcarrier assignment to LEDs are introduced and are shown through simulations, to reduce PAPR, and NLD noise due to clipping, and improve the BER performance at high SNRs as compared to DCO-OFDM. In addition, luminous efficacy is identified as an important lighting design parameter that is impacted by modulation. Relative luminous efficacy is defined as the ratio of the luminous efficacy of a modulated LED to that of an LED driven by a DC signal, and is introduced as a metric to assess the impact of modulation on LED lighting. Relative luminous efficacy links communication parameters such as signal variance to lighting design requirements. Secondly, a low-complexity amplify-and-forward (AF) scheme is proposed for an integrated power-line communication/visible-light communication (PLC/VLC) where SO-OFDM is used for the VLC link. Frequency translation of the incoming PLC signal is used to increase the usable bandwidth of the LED. The use of both frequency translation and SO-OFDM leads to capacity gains over DCO-OFDM in the high SNR regime. Finally, a low-complexity variant of SO-OFDM, termed square-wave SO-OFDM (SW-SO-OFDM), is proposed. Square-wave SO-OFDM uses square-wave carriers instead of sinusoidal waves to modulate a single OFDM subcarrier signal per LED. By using square-wave carriers, SW-SO-OFDM eliminates the need for digital-to-analog converters (DACs), digital predistortion (DPD), and the FFT operation. Squarewave SO-OFDM is also shown, through simulations, to achieve BER performance gains over SO-OFDM and DCO-OFDM. In addition, an experimental demonstration of SW-SO-OFDM with 64 QAM modulation on subcarriers is described. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Visible-light communications (VLC) is an emerging technology that exploits the increasingly widespread use of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) for indoor lighting, and modulates the optical power output of the LED for data transmission. Among the various modulation techniques that have been proposed for VLC, orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) offers high data rates, resistance to channel impairments, and simple channel estimation and equalization. However, OFDM signals suffer from a high peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) which degrades the efficiency of the power amplifier in the transmitter and hinders the communication performance. In this thesis, a new multiple-LED modulation technique, termed spatial optical OFDM (SO-OFDM), is proposed to reduce the PAPR. Using a frequency-to-space mapping, SO-OFDM divides the wideband high-PAPR OFDM signal into multiple narrowband low-PAPR signals and assigns each signal to a group of LEDs. Spatial summing of the transmitted signals occurs at the receiver allowing for the use of a conventional OFDM receiver. Several variations of SO-OFDM are introduced and are shown, using simulations, to reduce the PAPR, combat non-linear distortion (NLD), and improve the bit-error rate (BER) performance at high signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs), typical of VLC systems. Spatial optical OFDM is also applied to a practical scenario where its PAPR reduction capability is used to improve the overall capacity of a proposed system that integrates power-line communication (PLC) and VLC. A low-complexity variant of SO-OFDM, that uses square-wave carriers and simplifies the transmitter design by eliminating the need for digital predistortion (DPD) and digital-to-analog converters (DACs) is also proposed, and tested experimentally.

Turbo Trellis-Coded Modulation (TTCM) is an attractive scheme for higher data rate transmission, since it combines the impressive near Shannon limit error correcting ability of turbo codes with the high spectral efficiency property of TCM codes. We build a punctured parity-concatenated trellis codes in which a TCM code is used as the inner code and a simple parity-check code is used as the outer code. It can be constructed by simple repetition, interleavers, and TCM and functions as standard TTCM but with much lower complexity regarding real world implementation. An iterative bit MAP decoding algorithm is associated with the coding scheme. Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) modulation has been a promising solution for efficiently capturing multipath energy in highly dispersive channels and delivering high data rate transmission. One of UWB proposals in IEEE P802.15 WPAN project is to use multi-band OFDM system and punctured convolutional codes for UWB channels supporting data rate up to 480Mb/s. The HomePlug Networking system using the medium of power line wiring also selects OFDM as the modulation scheme due to its inherent adaptability in the presence of frequency selective channels, its resilience to jammer signals, and its robustness to impulsive noise in power line channel. The main idea behind OFDM is to split the transmitted data sequence into N parallel sequences of symbols and transmit on different frequencies. This structure has the particularity to enable a simple equalization scheme and to resist to multipath propagation channel. However, some carriers can be strongly attenuated. It is then necessary to incorporate a powerful channel encoder, combined with frequency and time interleaving. We examine the possibility of improving the proposed OFDM system over UWB channel and HomePlug powerline channel by using our Turbo TCM with QAM constellation for higher data rate transmission. The study shows that the system can offer much higher spectral efficiency, for example, 1.2 Gbps for OFDM/UWB which is 2.5 times higher than the current standard, and 39 Mbps for OFDM/HomePlug1.0 which is 3 times higher than current standard. We show several essential requirements to achieve high rate such as frequency and time diversifications, multi-level error protection. Results have been confirmed by density evolution. The effect of impulsive noise on TTCM coded OFDM system is also evaluated. A modified iterative bit MAP decoder is provided for channels with impulsive noise with different impulsivity.

The loss of senior expertise in power line design poses a critical challenge to the sustainable energy transition. Current methods of knowledge transfer fail to prevent the loss of invaluable knowledge necessary for future junior power line designers. Additionally, the rise of informal deployment of generative language models may also threaten to bury hand-written knowledge documents before this knowledge can be extracted, structured, and preserved for future guidance. This thesis proposes a framework where large language models are integrated into knowledge transfer and decision-making guidance for an engineering enterprise. Using this framework, this thesis further explores how data-driven knowledge tools can assist junior design engineers by supporting information retrieval and directing to knowledge sources. The ability of a large language model to retrieve relevant knowledge from an engineering design document was validated by comparing the process of human designers manually completing a similar task. In this evaluation involving six participants and the large language model, responses to questions on mechanical dimensioning of stays for utility poles were ranked by experts. The results showed that the large language model responses were ranked similarly to the junior designers on average. Additionally, a small-scale demonstrative knowledge tool, insights from interviews, literature studies as well as the results from the validation study lead to the conclusion that large language models can assist power line designers via a knowledge tool. Beyond power line design, this thesis contributes to the understanding of how data-driven language models can assist knowledge retrieval and decision-making across other engineering design domains. This work utilizes a professional education document on the mechanical dimensioning of wooden power line poles including an analysis on the wind and weight span’s affect on the dimension of the pole, developed parallel to this work. The original design data from the document supported the tests conducted in this thesis. The professional education document on the mechanical dimensioning of wooden power line poles was developed in parallel to this thesis as a case study supporting the tests with original design data on power line design knowledge. The work also discusses risks and ethical aspects when implementing such a knowledge tool. Risks such as leakage of classified information are emphasized and need comprehensive systems and methods to be avoided. It is therefore highlighted how important it is to carry out the project with care and expertise to avoid damage to companies and society. Local language models or highly trusted AI system providers are recommended to ensure that no sensitive information is leaked to an unwanted third-party. With a high degree of caution and consideration of risks, an effective knowledge tool can contribute to increased efficiency, faster and more sustainable development of power line infrastructure, and thus an faster energy transition. / Förlusten av senior expertis inom kraftledningskonstruktion utgör en kritisk utmaning för den hållbara energiomställningen. Nuvarande metoder för kunskapsöverföring är otillräcklig för att förhindra förlusten av ovärderlig kunskap som är nödvändig för framtida juniora kraftledningsprojektörer. Dessutom kan den ökade informella användingen av generativa språkmodeller hota att begrava mänskligt skrivna kunskapsdokument. Detta arbete presenterar ett ramverk d¨ar storskaliga språkmodeller används för att underlätta kunskapsöverföring och tillhandahålla vägledning vid beslutsfattande inom ingenjörsföretag. Med hjälp av detta ramverk utforskar arbetet ytterligare hur datadrivna kunskapsverktyg kan hjälpa juniora kraftledningskonstrukt¨orer genom att stödja informationsinhämtning med hänvisning till kunskapskällorna. En storskalig språkmodells förmåga att hämta relevant kunskap från ett tekniskt designdokument validerades genom att jämföra processen för mänskliga designers som manuellt slutförde en liknande uppgift. I denna utv¨ardering, som involverade sex deltagare och den storskaliga spr˚akmodellen, rankades svaren på frågor om mekanisk dimensionering av stag för kraftledningsstolpar av experter. Resultaten visade att den storskaliga språkmodellens svar i genomsnitt rankades på liknade nivå som de juniora ingenjörerna. Tillsammans med  ett småskaligt demonstrativt kunskapsverktyg, insikter från intervjuer med kraftledningskonstruktörer, litteraturstudier samt resultat från valideringsstudien dras slutsatsen att storskaliga språkmodeller kan stödja kraftledningskonstruktörer via ett kunskapsverktyg. Utöver kraftledningskonstruktion bidrar detta arbete till förståelsen av hur datadrivna språkmodeller kan hjälpa till med kunskapsinhämtning och beslutsfattande  inom andra tekniska designområden. Arbetet använder ett professionellt utbildningsunderlag om mekanisk dimensionering av kraftledningsstolpar i träkonstruktion, inklusive en analys av vertikala- och horistontella linspannets påverkan på stolpens dimension, utvecklat parallellt med detta arbete. Orginaldesigndata från underlaget stödde de tester som genomfördes. Arbetet belyser även risker och etiska aspekter vid implementering av ett sådant kunskapsverktyg. Risker som läckage av sekretessbelagd information betonas, och omfattande system och metoder behövs för att undvika dem. Därför understryks hur viktigt det är att genomföra liknande projekt med noggrannhet, försiktighet och expertis för att undvika skador på företag och samhälle. Lokala språkmodeller eller API-leverantörer med högt förtroende rekommenderas för att minimera risken att känslig information läcker ut till en oönskad tredje part. Med stor försiktighet och hänsyn till riskerna kan ett effektivt kunskapsverktyg bidra till ökad effektivitet, snabbare och mer hållbar utveckling av kraftledningsinfrastruktur, och därmed en snabbare energiomställning.

Power Line Communication (PLC) technology provides the omnipresence of high speed data services without requiring the installation of new infrastructure. The existing household electrical wiring which is used to deliver the electrical energy to the house is utilized by the PLC technology as a transmission channel. The data rates of several hundreds of Mbps are realized by the PLC technology. In most developed countries the cable used for household electrical wiring consists of three wires: Phase (P), Neutral (N) and Protective Earth (PE). The existing PLC systems use the P-N port to transmit and receive the signals. It is a typical single input single output (SISO) transmission. The inclusion of the PE wire at transmit and receive outlets leads to the availability of multiple transmit/receive ports which in turn leads to the realization of a MIMO communication channel. The principle objective of this thesis is to study and explore the inhome PLC channels in the MIMO context. The main objectives of the thesis are categorized as the following: ¿ Development of a channel sounding protocol to perform extensive channel and noise measurements on the inhome PLC networks, with the objective of generating a rich and realistic database. Evaluation of the MIMO PLC channel capacity by utilizing the database obtained from the measurements. ¿ Characterization and modeling of the inhome MIMO PLC channel through a set of parameter by utilizing the measured channel data. Evaluation of the performance of the channel model by comparing the simulated channels parameters with the measured ones. ¿ Characterization and modeling of the MIMO power line noise through various parameters by utilizing the measured noise data. Evaluation of the performance of the noise model by comparing the simulated noise characteristics with the measured noise.

[pt] A utilização das linhas de potência para fins de comunicação vem recebendo grande atenção nos últimos anos, principalmente devido a grande demanda por serviços de telecomunicações. A grande virtude é que as linhas de potência para comunicação apresentam uma solução sem a necessidade de nova fiação. Além disso, apresentam saída de potência disponível em todos os cômodos de uma residência, onde o terminal de comunicação possa ser usado, são de fácil instalação e acima de tudo apresentam custo reduzido. Sendo assim a comunicação através de linhas de potência vem se mostrando uma solução viável na oferta de serviços de telecomunicações. Esta tese investigou os sistemas PLC no que diz respeito à estimação do canal. Foi desenvolvido um método paramétrico de estimação do canal PLC baseado no algoritmo EM (Expectation Maximization). Foi feita a avaliação de desempenho combinando modulação OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing), estimação do canal PLC e equalização, sendo utilizado como referencias os equalizadores ZF (Zero Forcing) e MMSE (Minimum Mean Square Error). / [en] The powerline communications systems have been receiving increasing attention in last few years. Power line communications presents a no new wires solution with the additional advantages of ubiquitous node availability, easy installation, and cost effectiveness. This thesis investigation the powerline estimation channel. It was presented parametric channel estimation method using EM (Expectation Maximization) algorithm. The performance using OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing), PLC Channel estimation and equalization was availability. The performance was studied using two equalization techniques Zero- Forcing and Minimum Mean Square Error.

In this thesis, we are interested in a wide-area PLC (Power Line Communication) network to provide a communication infrastructure for monitoring and control of energy distribution and consumption. This work has been carried out as a part of REMPLI (Real-time Energy Management via Power Line and Internet) European project and resulted in the definition of REMPLI PLC. For achieving high network performance and real-time data transfer using medium voltage and low voltage electricity grids, major problems such as dynamic packet routing, quality of service management and real-time event reporting are addressed. We designed an efficient routing protocol to cope with dynamic electricity grid topology changes and to relay packets to reach the destination. REMPLI PLC performance is evaluated using simulations and complemented by analytic studies. It is proved that most of the application requirements can be satisfied by REMPLI PLC. We proposed and implemented a new traffic dispatcher providing differentiated quality of service for applications. Based on ALOHA protocol, some variants have been designed and evaluated for enabling efficient real-time event notification / Dans cette thèse, nous nous intéressons à la problématique liée à la communication numérique sur courant porteur dans l’objectif de fournir une infrastructure de communication qui permet la surveillance et le contrôle de la distribution et de la consommation de l’énergie. Ce travail a été effectué dans le cadre du projet européen REMPLI (Real-time Energy Management via Power Line and Internet) et a produit la spécification REMPLI PLC (Power Line Communication). Pour fournir une meilleure performance de la communication et effectuer le transfert de données en temps réel, en utilisant les réseaux électriques de moyenne tension et de basse tension, les problèmes principaux qui sont le routage dynamique de paquets de données, la gestion de la qualité de service et la notification des événement en temps réel, ont été traités. Nous avons développé un protocole de routage efficace pour s’adapter au changement dynamique de topologie du réseau électrique. Les performances de REMPLI PLC sont évaluées en utilisant des approches de simulation couplée avec des approches analytiques. Il est prouvé que la majorité des besoins applicatifs peuvent être satisfaite par REMPLI PLC. Nous avons proposé et implanté un nouvel “ordonnançeur de traffic” fournissant différents niveaux de qualité de service pour les applications. Des variantes de protocole ALOHA ont été proposées et évaluées afin de vérifier que les propriétés temps réel requises sur les notifications d’événements sont respectées