On the First-Order Markov Model for the PLC Fading Channel

The power line communications (PLC) channel is noisy one, which can be modeled by the Markov process. The order is the key concerning when used the Markov process. the level of complexity will be incurred from using higher order, while the first-order Markov models may lead to the less accurate channel response. In the paper, the first-order Markov channel is under thoroughly discussion, and it can provide a mathematically tractable model for time-varying channels and uses only the received SNR of the symbol immediately preceding the current one. With the first-order Markov chain, given the information of the symbol immediately preceding the current one, any other previous symbol should be independent of the current one. We show that given the information corresponding to the previous symbol, the amount of uncertainty remaining in the current symbol should be negligible. That means the first-order of Markov process is enough when modeled the PLC channel.