Power-Line Communication: Channel Characterization and Modeling for Transportation Systems

Abstract

This paper provides an overview of the recent advances in the characterization and modeling of power line communication channels in transportation systems. The salient aspects of the topological and functional features of the data channels using power networks of vehicles, spacecrafts and aircrafts are presented. The contribution has a tutorial nature and guides the reader through a selection of recent papers collecting relevant results needed to assess the feasibility and strengths of power line communication for this class of applications.

Delay Analysis and Time-Critical Protocol Design for In-Vehicle Power Line Communication Systems

“…The findings show that vehicle power lines constitute a harsh and noisy transmission medium with both time and frequency-selective channel, colored background noise, and periodic and aperiodic impulsive noise. The measurements in [20], [21] have confirmed that the physical transmission of PLC in vehicle is feasible. However, the emerging new challenges come with a surge in networking technology (MAC layer and above) to achieve time-critical and reliable applications, which is very limited in the existing literature.…”

TIDAL-CAN: Differential Timing Based Intrusion Detection and Localization for Controller Area Network

“…Limitations are imposed by specification for the maximum bus length that should be used for a certain bit rate to assure propper operation. The typical in-vehicle bus length is around 5-6 meters with some works reporting the use of shorter networks down to 3 meters [10], or longer networks extending up to 15 meters [33]. Considering propagation speeds in the 5-5.5 ns/m interval, the transmission delay across the longest path (caused exclusively by the line delay) of a typical 5 m long CAN bus is between 25 and 27.5 ns.…”

“…The bus consists of a 5 meter long twisted wire cable properly terminated with 120 resistors. Bus length was selected according to common lengths found in vehicles [10], [33]. A number of 10 connection points are positioned along the bus as illustrated in FIGURE 11 where each node connection point is labeled to simplify referencing in the following sections.…”

Power line communications (PLC) technology: More than 20 years of intense research

“…Even though the PLC channel is notoriously a rough environment that has been constructed without taking into account the communication aspect, PLC remains a strong competitor to the wireless network for applications such as home automation, smart grid, smart city, and even telemetry . The applications of PLC are not limited to the aforementioned areas as the technology has also been explored for in‐vehicle, in‐aircraft, in‐ships, and in‐trains communications, to mention only a few. Moreover, in the past 3 to 4 years, PLC has been investigated to be used as a backbone network for many other communication technologies such as visible light communications (VLC) .…”