This paper presents the impact of LED lamps on the performance of Narrowband Power Line Communication (NB-PLC) in the CENELEC-A band between 9-95 kHz. NB-PLC in is only one of the many victims of interference in the frequency range 2-150 kHz. Only few emission standards for this frequency range are available, while the number of interference cases is growing rapidly. Most equipment will fail at a specific frequency and/or level. PLC is chosen as a victim, as the performance of the PLC is rated through well-established parameters. One of these is the Frame Error Rate (FER), which is calculated as the ratio between the erroneous frames and total received frames. The number of LED lamps has a strong correlation with the peak amplitude of the current pulses from the LED lamps and the FER of the PLC data frames.

This paper presents the time and frequency domain analysis of the current pulse width from a non-linear load and its interference on the Power Line Communication (PLC). This investigation arises from the time-domain characteristics of the current from modern non-linear loads such as Light-Emitting Diode (LED) which show that the current generated by such loads have impulsive characteristics with a certain amplitude and pulse width. Communication test with PLC modem have been performed and the effects are simulated using LTSpice by creating an artificial non-linear load which can produce current pulses with an adjustable pulse width without changing the amplitude. The current pulse from the artificial load is analyzed in the time and frequency domain with MATLAB to observe the emission levels between 2-150 kHz using Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) and Short-Time Fourier Transform (STFFT).

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This paper presents the comparisons between time-domain voltage and current measurement techniques for interference analysis in Power Line Communication (PLC)application. Voltage measurement is performed by directly sensing the mains voltage from a speed-controlled water pump using a 1:1000 voltage divider, whilst the current is measured using three types of sensors: current clamp, hall element, and differential probe over a shunt resistor. Voltage and current from these sensors are read with a digital oscilloscope. Impedance and power are calculated as well using postprocessing software, in which the results can be analyzed in the frequency domain using a spectrogram to observe the possibility of performing communication. Voltage and current transducers should have transfer functions which are independent of frequency when performing time-domain measurements.