Effect of Interference from DC Power Supply on Power Line Communication Channel

Power line communications can be utilized to build up the data transmission network wherever the electricity is available. This type of communication system could provide a basis for the network construction in many application areas which include the smart grid and home networks. On the other hand the power line communication is vulnerable to various types of interferences and noises. Also, its channel characteristics are constantly changing depending on the type and the amount of electrical loads connected to the network. Especially, the usage of DC power supply has been increased due to the explosive expansion of smart devices in our daily lives which result in the increased level of interferences on the power line channel. In this paper, the effect of the operation of the DC power supplies on the channel characteristics and the data transmission performance is analyzed through the experiments.