Comparison of CDMA and OFDM for Data Communications on the Medium Voltage Power Grid

Wolfgang Schulz, Sascha Schwarze University of Paderborn (Germany) Department of Communications Engineering Pohlweg 47-49 D-33098 Paderborn phone: +49 - 5251 - 603625, fax: +49 - 5251 - 603627 e-mail: schwarze@nt.upb.de, schulz@nt.upb.de

Abstract
High data rate communications on the medium voltage network has recently been added to the many fields of interest in power-line communications. As research work is yet in its infancy, relatively little is known about the channel characteristicsand appropriate modulation methods. This paper presents a comparison of OFDM and CDMA for data communications on the medium voltage network. The proposed systems were evaluated with simulations which included the measured channel characteristics of a selected type of cable. For the simulations a point-to-point connection used as a backbone was considered. Keywords: Medium Voltage Network, Channel Characteristics, OFDM, CDMA

Introduction
Power-line communications has been the focus of much research work since the liberalization of the telecommunication markets. The prime interest was the use of the existing power-lines as an access network which is independent of the former telecommunication monopolists. Therefore, most of the research activities concentrated on the low voltage grid which provides a connection to virtually every household. With the growing interest in power-line communications the scope of possible applications and voltage levels increased. This included the assessment of high data rate communications on medium voltage power-line cables. These cables had been developed and used for the transmission of energy with no obtainable information on their high frequency characteristics. Therefore, the first important task was the examination of the relevant properties of the cables and the development of coupling techniques. Simultaneously, sophisticated modulation methods, which had been proposed for mobile channels, were employed for communications on the low voltage grid. Amongst these, CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) and OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) appeared to be especially promising. This paper evaluates the suitability of CDMA and OFDM for high data rate communications on medium voltage power-line cables. Both systems exhibit both advantages and problems for this application. The advantages of CDMA include robustness against narrowband interference, the possibility of multi-user access, the availability of dedicated processors and an inherent low power spectral density. This last aspect is crucial because of the regulations concerning electro-magnetic compatibility. The high bandwidth, and therefore high frequencies, required for high data rates cause radiated emissions. Accordingly, the power spectral density should be as low as possible in order to cause minimum emission. Advantageous aspects of OFDM include the simplification (or omission) of channel equalization, relatively easy implementation using digital signal processors and enhanced immunity to impulse noise due to the long Slmbol duration. The possibility of adaption to the channel by bit loading may be used to combat narrowband interference. Both modulation methods exhibit high sensitivity to synchronization as a major, but not insurmountable, drawback. Simulations were carried out to compare the performance of the two different systems. These simulations assumed similar conditions imposed on the centre frequency and the data rate. The channel used in the

simulations was determined by measuring the channel transfer function and noise of a selected medium voltage cable. The simulated achievable bit error rates were used as a figure of merit. Furthermore, the feasibility of multi-user access and the practicability of hardware implementation were considered.

Selected Cable and Application

The existing voltage levels, common topologies and cable types in Germany have already been described in [I]. The medium voltage cable considered in this paper is of the type NA2XS(FL)2Y 1*120RM/16 12/20 kV. The basic properties of the cable are denoted by the standardized cable type. The structure of this single-core cable is depicted in Fig. 1. The cable possesses a coaxial structure. The centre conductor of the cable consists of several aluminium wires with a cross-sectional area of 120 mm2. It is used for the transportation of current. The centre conductor is surrounded by semi-conducting material which is used to limit the electrical field. The next layer is the insulation which separates the centre conductor from the screen. The thickness of the insulation depends on the nominal voltage of the cable. In this case the insulation is made of polyethylene and its thickness is 5.5 mm according to the nominal voltage of 12 kV between conductor and screen and 20 kV between two conductors. The insulation is again covered with semi-conducting material followed by the screen which consists of copper wires with an overall cross-sectional area of 16 mm2. The screen is connected to ground and carries charging current, leakage current and ground fault current. The cross-sectional area of the screen depends on that of the centre conductor. The outermost layer is a sheath for protection against mechanical stresses and corrosion. This sheath is also made of polyethylene.

PLC-System

PLC-System

CU = Coupling Unit

semi-conductingmaterial Figure 1: Single-core cable Figure 2: Coupling between centre conductor and screen

The medium voltage network is a three-phase network. Therefore, three cables have to be installed when single-core cables are used. One of the possibilities of inserting signals into single-core cables is coupling between centre conductor and screen [2]. This requires the use of specially designed coupling units as depicted in Figure 2. These have to include a high-pass filter in order to suppress the medium voltage and prevent it form damaging the transceiver units. Besides, they provide a means for impedance matching. One vital aspect of the coupling units is their compliance with the safety standards of the power supply industry. The centre conductors have to be fitted with low-pass filters which let the medium voltage with an operating frequency of 50 Hz pass unhindered but suppress the frequency band of the data transmission signal in order to avoid multipath propagation. The development of coupling units is a difficult task because of the voltage level and the safety standards involved. Other important aspects are the size and the cost of the coupling units because these aspects also influence the acceptance of the proposed systems by the power supply utilities. Several applications could be performed using the medium voltage grid. Low data rate applications include tariff management and surveillance. Internet access is one of the main candidates for high data rate applications. The medium voltage network can either be used independently from or in conjunction with power-line communications on the low voltage grid. Of the multitude of conceivable applications the scenario depicted in Figure 3 was considered in this paper. Figure 3 shows part of a power distribution system. It contains a medium voltage cable with two transformer substations connected to it. The low voltage grid connected to the transformer substations is also shown. One of the stations is supposed to be connected to a data transmission net, say optical fibre, which is true for some but not all of the transformer substations in Germany. The low voltage grid connected to the other station is intended

to be used for power-line communications like internet access but the transformer substation lacks a connection to a data transmission net. Therefore, the medium voltage cable to the next station shall be used as a backbone in order to avoid the otherwise necessary installation of an alternative wired or wireless communications system. AS the accumulated transmission signals from the low voltage grid cannot pass the transformer, they have to be ~oupledout the low voltage cable and coupled into the medium voltage cable in the substation. In the second ~ubstationthe signals are coupled out of the medium voltage cable and transmitted to a high data rate transmission net.

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Figure 3: Proposed Application The requirements for the transmission system were based on the following facts and assumptions. The distance between two medium voltage transformer substations in urban areas typically ranges from 100 m to 1000 m. In a worst-case assumption a length of 1000 m was chosen for the medium voltage cable. In Germany about 300 households are connected to a transformer substation. Assuming a percentage of 10 % of power-line communication users and a data rate of 64 kbit/s per user (as in ISDN), the required net data rate for the transmission system is roughly 2 Mbit/s.

Channel Characteristics

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The measurement results presented in this paper were obtained by measurements performed with the medium voltage cable mentioned above. The secondary transmission line parameters where measured with cables that were not installed so that no medium voltage was present and the measurement system could be coupled directly with the cable. Figure 4 shows the absolute value of the transfer function in the frequency range from DC to 10 MHz. The cable exhibits a typical low-pass characteristic. The attenuation rises almost linearly with frequency. At 5 MHz the attenuation amounts to about 20 dB/km. This means the attenuation is much lower than that encountered in the low voltage network. Apart fiom its low absolute value the measured attenuation presents the advantage of not being frequency selective due to the single path propagation whereas the multipath propagation typically encountered in the low voltage network results in a frequency selective attenuation. The measured phase coefficient is depicted in Figure 5 in the frequency range from DC to 10 MHz. The phase coefficient grows linearly with frequency resulting in a constant group delay. This characteristic is equally favourable for a communications system as the low attenuation. At 10 MHz the phase coefficient reaches a value of about 27500 O h . This value yields a phase velocity of ca. 1.3" 10' m/s. The measured characteristic impedance of the cable is shown in Figure 6. Its absolute value of about 27 Q is almost constant in the frequency range up to 10 MHz. Furthermore, the characteristic impedance is almost totally real. Both properties are typical of cables with a coaxial structure. Several other single-core cables exhibited the same characteristics. The constant characteristic impedance provides an easy way of impedance matching between the transceiver and the cable. The measurements of the interference present on medium voltage cables could not be carried out with live cables because of the lack of the necessary coupling units. As explained above the coupling between the transmission system and the medium voltage cables is a difficult task and as yet no coupling units are available commercially. Therefore the measurements were carried out on a cable which was installed but not connected to the medium voltage. However, the cable was installed in an underground shaft with other cables that were

connected to the medium voltage. In this way the interference due to the electrical load was electromagnetically coupled into the cable connected to the measurement equipment.

Figure 4: Transfer function

Figure 5: Phase coefficient

A typical noise spectrum for frequencies up to 2 MHz is shown in Figure 7. It is characterized by a relatively low noisefloor with some broadband interference at frequencies below 400 kHz and some narrowband interference at about 1.3 MHz and 1.4 MHz. The narrowband interference is due to radio-frequency signals that are electromagnetically coupled into the medium voltage cables. Because the cables are installed underground the level of narrowband interference due to radio-frequency signals is much lower than that encountered in the low voltage network. Measurements at higher frequencies showed that most of the narrowband interference occurs at frequencies below 2 MHz. At higher frequencies usually only the low noisefloor is present.

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Figure 7: Noise spectrum

The broadband interference at lower frequencies is typical of medium voltage cables and related to the electrical load. Compared to the low voltage network the level of interference is generally lower in the medium voltage network.

CDMA Simulation System

Spread spectrum systems offer several advantageous aspects with regard to power-line communications. Amongst those, the inherent low power spectral density [3] is especially interesting. As electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) has become one of the major topics concerning PLC, a low power spectral density and accordingly low radiated emissions recommend spread spectrum for a high data rate communications system.

Another positive aspect is the immunity to narrowband interference. The drawbacks include high sensitivity to synchronization errors and an increased required bandwidth. A simplified model of a CDMA system for one user is shown in Figure 8. In the simulation system the binary data from the signal source is convolutionally encoded with a code rate of R, = ?4. The encoder has a constraint length of L = 5. Afterwards the data stream is differentially encoded using DQPSK (Differential Quaternary Phase Shift Keying). It is then spread using Direct Sequence CDMA with Gold codes of the length 1=63, which is also the factor by which the signal bandwidth is spread. Each bit is multiplied with the complete sequence. The use of DS-CDMA with Gold codes offers the necessary multi-user access, as the different users can be separated because of the correlation properties of the codes. The signal is then transmitted over the channel which will be described later on. In order to save simulation time all simulations were carried out in the equivalent baseband. The required channel bandwidth can be calculated using the desired net data rate Hz cosine filters with a roll-off factor of 1 in the transmitter and the receiver. Thus the bandwidth of the upper sideband equals the total data rate and the total required bandwidth B, is determined calculating

D, =64 kbitls and a bandwidth efficiency of 77 = - which is the result of matched filtering using root lbiVs ,

where the factor '/z is due to the QPSK which maps two bits to every symbol. In the receiver the incoming data stream is despread using the same Gold code as in the transmitter. It is then differentially decoded before being transmitted to the Viterbi decoder where the most probable sequence is determined and handed over to the signal sink. The Viterbi decoder works with a truncation path length of T=5*L=25.
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Figure 8: CDMA system for one user The channel model used in the simulations is depicted in Figure 9. It incorporates two frequency domain filters. One filter contains the measured transfer function. The incoming bit stream is transformed to frequency domain and then weighted with the transfer function. After transforming the signal back to time domain, coloured noise is added. This is generated using a white noise source the output of which is transformed to frequency domain and then weighted with the measured noise spectrum in the second frequency domain filter. The CDMA system as described above requires a bandwidth of about 8 MHz. A centre frequency of 4.2 MHz was chosen in order to lead to a relatively low attenuation whilst avoiding the frequency band of increased noise spectral density. As the noise spectral density was only measured in the frequency band up to 2 MHz, the spectral density was assumed to show only background noise for higher frequencies. A simplified view of the complete simulation model is given in Figure 10. Up to 3 2 transmitters, which are all composed of the same blocks as shown in Figure 8 but use different Gold codes, transmit their data sYnchronously and with the same transmit power. All signals are than added, transmitted over the channel described above and one receiver is used to determine the bit error probability of a selected user. The transmitters and receivers are synchronized in the simulation system, whereas the synchronization would have to

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be considered in a hardware implementation. Of course, a hardware realization would also need the same number of transmitters and receivers. Spectral

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OFDM Simulation System

Multicarrier modulation has long been known as an efficient modulation scheme for bandlimited channels
[4]. Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) is considered as one of the most promising

modulation methods for power-line communications. Beside its high bandwidth efficiency it offers several favourable aspects. The enlarged symbol duration leads to a decreased susceptibility to impulsive noise. The insertion of a guard interval increases the immunity to delay spread because of multipath propagation. The narrowband subchannels ease the implementation of channel equalization and offer the possibility of adaption to the channel conditions. The major drawback is the high sensitivity to synchronization errors. This problem has recently been the subject of several papers. A simplified version of the simulation system is shown in Figure 11. First the data from the signal source is transmitted to the signal mapper where a specified number of bits is mapped to the parallel channel symbols. The number of bits that are mapped to the symbols of the different subchannels depends on the desired data rate and the quality of the subchannels, which is monitored by the error counter of the simulation system. Thus, the system adapts to the channel conditions. The parallel channel symbols are transformed by an Inverse Fast Fourier Transform and then converted from parallel to serial. A guard interval consisting of a cyclic prefix is added to each of the serial vectors which are then transmitted over the channel. The channel is the same as the one used for the CDMA simulation system and the system is again simulated in the equivalent baseband. A hardware implementation would have to include a digital-to-analog conversion followed by a low-pass filter and, depending on the desired frequency band, a modulator. In the same way a demodulator, a low-pass filter and an analog-to-digital converter would have to be inserted at the receiver. In the receiver the guard interval is removed and the bit stream is converted from serial to parallel. After the Fast Fourier Transform the data is transmitted to a one-tap equalizer. This contains one complex channel coefficient for each channel. The channel coefficients are determined by the equalizer using a training sequence at the start of the simulation. ~ f t e demapping the parallel channel symbols the serial data stream is transmitted r to the sink.

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Figure 11: OFDM system for simulations For the required bandwidth a different approach than for the CDMA system was taken. The CDMA system offers a low power spectral density because of the spreading and accordingly the radiated emissions might well be lower than the limits to be imposed by future regulations. Beside considerations to set constant limits for large parts of the frequency band of interest (up to 30 MHz), there are also proposals to designate frequency bands especially for power-line communications, resulting in reduced limits for the emissions. This is where the OFDM system with a smaller required bandwidth but higher power spectral density than the CDMA system seems promising. The bandwidth of the transmission signal is set by the digital-to-analog converter in a hardware implementation. In the simulation system the sampling rate at the transmitter output determines and equals the required bandwidth. It was set to 2 MHz. The centre frequency was again chosen as 4.2 MHz. As the guard interval could be omitted because of the single path propagation only one bit on average had to be mapped to each subchannel symbol. The number of subchannels for the simulations was set to 256. The multi-user access was implemented by assigning 16 subchannels to each of the 32 users. To ensure the same bit error rates for , every user, the channels were assigned as n, n+32, n+64... for user n.

Comparison of the Proposed Systems

Both the CDMA and the OFDM simulation system used the same channel, namely a medium voltage powerline cable of the type described above with a length of 1000 m, the same centre frequency of 4.2 MHz and the same total net data rate of 2 Mbit/s distributed between 32 users. The CDMA system used a bandwidth of 8 MHz whereas the OFDM system was assigned a bandwidth of 2 MHz. The bit error rates of the simulation systems are shown in Figure 12. They are plotted versus the signal-tonoise ratio at the receiver input. The CDMA system offers a substantial advantage over the OFDM system. As the average attenuation encountered by the systems is equal, the difference between the signal power at the transmitter is reduced by 6 dB because the OFDM system uses only one quarter of the bandwidth and accordingly receives only one quarter of noise power at the input of the receiver. Nevertheless, the difference remains the same as depicted in ,Figure 12 when the power spectral density is concerned because the OFDM system distributes its signal power over one quarter of the bandwidth when compared with the CDMA system. The difference between the two systems would have been lower if the simulation model would have included impulsive noise which is present on medium voltage cables. The presence of impulsive noise would lead to an improved performance of the OFDM system. The necessary increase of transmit power for the CDMA system would depend on the number, the length and the amplitude of the impulses contained in the noise. The other Potential advantage of the OFDM system, namely its higher immunity to delay spread, could not lead to a closer result as there is no multipath propagation in the examined application. The hardware implementation would require several CDMA chips for a system with 32 users as there are only chips with one or two channels available as yet. However, first designs for multichannel chips are being developed [ 5 ] . The synchronization and data management would also have to be dealt with in a hardware

realization. The OFDM system could be implemented using high performance digital signal processors and several systems have already been proposed.

Figure 12: Simulation results of the proposed systems

Conclusions
This paper investigated the performance of a CDMA and an OFDM system for high data rate transmission on a medium voltage cable. The channel characteristics were obtained by measurements and were included in the simulation systems. In the simulations the CDMA system showed a substantial advantage over the OFDM system concerning the transmit power as well as the power spectral density which influences the radiated emissions. Future simulations have to evaluate the performance in the presence of impulsive noise. The choice for the CDMA or the OFDM system depends mainly on the future regulations on radiated emissions. Specially designated frequency bands for power-line communications would favour the OFDM system whereas a lower and constant limit for large parts of the frequency band of interest would recommend the CDMA system.

References
[I] Chr. Hensen; W. Schulz; S. Schwarze; E. Borchers; G. Dickmann: Characterisation, Measurement and Modelling of Medium Voltage Power-Line Cables for High Data Rate Communications. 3rd International Symposium on Power-Line Communications and its Applications, Lancaster, UK, 1999, pp. 37-44. [2] W. Schulz; S. Schwarze: Data Communications on the Medium Voltage Power-Line Network: Channel Characteristics and System simulation. International Journal of Electronics and Communications (AEU) 54 (2000) No. 1. [3] Pickholtz, R L.; Schilling, D. L.; Milstein, L.B.: Theory of Spread Spectrum Communications Tutorial: IEEE Transactions-onCommunications, COM-30, pp. 855-884.
[4]

-A

Bingham, J. A. C.: Multicanier Modulation for Data Transmission: An Idea whose Time Has Come. IEEE Communications Magazine, May 1990, pp.5-14.

[5] Chr. Hensen; W. Schulz: Hardware Design of a Multi-User DS-CDMA Processor for Power-Line Communications, in these proceedings