An Experimental Model of the Mobile Power-Line Communication Systems

Abstract

This paper presents a novel experiment design of applying Power-Line Communication (PLC) system in a mobile fashion. In this experiment environment, data is transmitted through the power lines that are attached with a pair of mobile contacts. An electrical railway system model is established for the experiment. The model is built with the data transmission system using the power lines with mobile contacts co-functioning with the power supply system. A track-powered model train module is modified as the carrier of the mobile contacts, which travels along the track of the power lines. With this model, the simulation of the PLC applied to the electrical railway system, such as rapid transit system and high speed railways, is conducted. The measurements of data transmission rate and the performance evaluation under various speeds are therefore collected and analyzed. This paper then discusses the pros and cons of using the PLC system to transmit the network packets instead of using the wireless communication systems (such as cellular phone system) in an electrical railway system. In the end, the possible problems with the PLC being applied to the real world electrical railway systems and the required future experiments are issued and discussed.