Patent · US Expired

Power line communication system and method

US6329905A · kind A · utility

17Cited by
6References
10Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventor

Key dates

Filing dateMar 23, 2000
Grant dateDec 11, 2001
Priority date
Expiry dateMar 23, 2020

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
  • CPC primaryH04B2203/5483
  • WIPO fieldTelecommunications
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A system for communicating digital information over wires having a great deal of harmonic distortion, attenuation and noise, such as a power line, employs a transmitter which generates a signal representing a symbol of data. Some form of signal modulation such as Differential Phase Shift Keying (DPSK) or Frequency Shift Keying (FSK) is used to encode the data. The transmitter will continuously transmit or retransmit each data symbol until an acknowledgment is received from a receiving device. At the receiving device, the received signal is sampled and multiple repetitions of the same symbol are averaged to reduce noise. The averaged samples are then analyzed to demodulate the data. Both transmitting and receiving devices are clocked at the same frequency which is derived in both from the fundamental power line frequency. As such, the generation and detection of the data signals is coherent, making it possible to average out the effect of noise over multiple frames thereby ensuring communication even over highly noisy transmission media.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.