Experimental Performance Analysis of Powerline Communication Technologies in AMI Systems

Recently, a powerline communication technology (PLC) has gained a tremendous attention to advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) systems. In this paper, narrowband and broadband PLC technologies have been experimentally examined with a smart meter. Specifically, the communication throughput and distance measurements are evaluated in several situations, including no-load and with-load situations. The experimental results indicate that the investigated broadband PLC has achieved a better performance than the narrowband PLC in terms of throughput because the broadband PLC exploits a much wider bandwidth than the narrowband PLC. In terms of distance, the broadband and narrowband PLCs have achieved a comparable performance such that they both are able to reach a maximum distance of 1.5km in the laboratory test. Therefore, the analysis presented in this paper would help in designing appropriate powerline communication network for better and efficient data transfer in AMI systems.