Demystifying Powerline Impedance: A Key to PLC Design Success

by Rahul Parsani, Cypress Semiconductor

Powerline communication (PLC) has gained a lot of traction in recent years as an alternative and cost-effective networking technology that requires no new wires. There are powerline outlets everywhere in homes and office buildings, making it an all-encompassing network and the largest infrastructure which can be used for data communication. However, even today, it has remained an engineering challenge to communicate data reliably on the powerline. The reliability challenge is partly due to the varying nature of the powerline itself and the loads (such as electrical appliances, motors) connected to the powerline.

Studying the powerlines in more detail reveals some interesting facts about the effect of loading on the performance of PLC. A PLC transmit signal (Tx) that reaches the receiver may be too small to be successfully received, mainly due to the impedances of the loads and the powerline.

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