An Embedded Power Line Communication Technique for DC-DC Distributed Power System Based on the Switching Ripple

Distributed Power System (DPS) is a widely adopted power structure for renewable energy application and telecommunication, computer system, aerospace industry, etc. DPS is more reliable and flexible than the traditional concentrated power system. The communication for the DPS utilities plays an important role in the system framework. The reliability, low cost and easy implementation are important for communication system. This paper proposes an embedded power line communication scheme which utilizes the switching ripple as the signal carrier and the power line as the communication channel. It is challenging to make the combination of power transmission and communication while keeping the two not influenced by each other. A prototype comprised of several Buck converters sharing a common bus is demonstrated. To get stable switching ripple in the input communication port, a one-turn coil coupled with the energy storage inductor is added. Frequency Shift Keying (FSK) modulation and Discrete Fourier Transformation (DFT) demodulation are also employed to realize the communication. The feasibility of the proposed communication scheme is verified by simulation and experiment.