Patent · US Expired

Data communication over power lines

US6559757B1 · kind B1 · utility

87Cited by
3References
13Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateOct 26, 2000
Grant dateMay 6, 2003
Priority date
Expiry dateOct 26, 2020

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
  • CPC primaryH04B2203/5491
  • WIPO fieldTelecommunications
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A power line communication system includes a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) having a sine wave approximator driven by a high frequency clock in the FPGA. The sine wave approximator generates a high frequency sine wave-shaped communication signal on command by a processor. The data transmission scheme includes sending a sequence of fixed length and fixed frequency cells wherein each transmitted cell is of one of four phases 0°, 90°, 180° or 270° (FIG. 2) relative to the phase of a preceding transmitted cell with the first transmitted cell designated as a zero-phase reference cell. The data transmissions are synchronized by the voltage zero crossings of the AC power line and each transmission consists of 27 cells evenly distributed over the AC voltage line half cycle. The high frequency sine wave-shaped communication signal is superimposed on the low frequency (60 Hz) AC power line via a transconductance amplifier which draws current from the AC power line via a full-wave bridge rectifier. The resulting signal is passed through several stages of filtering and then quantized by a digitizing comparator. The quantized output is a 1-bit in phase or 90 degree out of …

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