2023 IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications Workshops and other Affiliated Events (PerCom Workshops)
| 978-1-6654-5381-3/23/$31.00 ©2023 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/PERCOMWORKSHOPS56833.2023.10150400
2023 IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications Workshops and other Affiliated
Events (PerCom Workshops): WIP papers
Grid MIMO: Exploiting Spatiality of Power Line
Infrastructure for MIMO
Wei Sun, Bo Chen, Vivek Yenamandra and Kannan Srinivasan
Department of Computer Science and Engineering, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA
Email: sun.1868@osu.edu, bochen2@cisco.com, yenamandra-guruvenkata.1@buckeyemail.osu.edu, kannan@cse.ohio-state.edu
Abstract—Power line communication (PLC) has significant
benefits. By exploiting the existing and ubiquitous power line
infrastructure, PLC signals can cover a larger area and provide
high-speed data service without the installation of new infras-
tructure, especially in remote rural areas where Ethernet is not
available. However, the state-of-the-art PLC can support at most
2 × 2 MIMO, which cannot achieve ubiquitous and scalable
connectivity for increasing traffic on the power line. In this
paper, we exploit the spatiality of the power line infrastructure
to achieve MIMO communication. We verify the independence
of powerline channels in power line infrastructure and the scala-
bility of doing MIMO technology to improve the performance of
power line communication. Our experimental results show that
our architecture is scalable and boosts the data rate on the power
line.
Index Terms—MIMO, Power Line Communication
I. I NTRODUCTION
The power delivery infrastructure is not originally designed
for communication. The power line medium has high attenu-
ation for frequencies other than 60 Hz (e.g., North America)
or 50 Hz (e.g., Europe and Asia). Still, there exist many
standards that propose to use frequency bands on the power
line that don’t exhibit undesirably high attenuation for com-
munication [1]. Some bands allow long haul low data rate
communication between smart homes and utility companies,
and others allow in-house high data rate communication [2].
Using a power line for communication is very desirable for
many upcoming applications (e.g., hybrid WiFi and power line
communication, last-mile network access in rural areas, and
internet-of-things over the power line). Internet of things (IoT)
devices such as security cameras, for example, can use power
lines as their network infrastructure to access to the Internet.
With any of the power line communication standards (e.g.,
IEEE 1901 [3] and HomePlug AV [4]), only one node can
transmit at a given time on a given frequency band. Therefore,
when multiple nodes need to use the same shared power line,
they need to take turns. This is not desirable for the above-
mentioned applications when the nodes in such networks could
be large. In the wireless counterpart, however, there are multi-
input multi-output (MIMO) techniques that enable scalable
throughput with increasing nodes or users by exploiting spatial
diversity. For this reason, wireless networks are more desirable
than wired networks. But what makes wireless networks more
special that these MIMO techniques can only be enabled in
them? The answer is quite simple: For MIMO techniques to
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978-1-6654-5381-3/23/$31.00 ©2023 IEEE
work, the channel measured across transmitters and receivers
should be independent of each other. In the wireless do-
main, due to multipath effects, the observed channel between
transceivers are independent. There is an conventional wisdom
in the wired world that since the wired medium is guided, the
signals from transmitters to receivers take the same path and
therefore, result in dependent channel observations.
A recent work has shown that by using two separate wires –
live (L) and protected earth (PE) wires (along with the neutral
(N) wire)– we can enable MIMO communication [5], [6].
This is, however, not scalable since the degrees of freedom
are only two: One cannot enable N × N MIMO using these
techniques where N ≥ 2. They also suffer from the cross-talk
among different ports [6], [7]. These works also implicitly
assume that the channels measured on the same wire, across
space are dependent. In this paper, we show the feasibility
of enabling scalable MIMO communication on power lines
by providing preliminary measurements. Specifically, we show
that the channels observed over space on the power line are
independent. Why are the channels independent? The reason
is that wired networks do have multiple interfaces to the
same shared medium that can present different loads to the
medium. These loads are designed to minimize reflections at
60Hz or 50Hz so as to maximize power transfer. At other
frequencies, however, these loads do reflect the incident signals
heavily. These reflected signals combine with the original
signals – differently at different plug points in the powerline
infrastructure – to cause a variation of the channel over space.
Thus, we conjecture that indeed power lines exhibit rich
multipath.
We go a step further and demonstrate the feasibility of
MIMO technique on the power line. To this end, we develop
a primitive MIMO approach and show a linear increase in
data rate with an increasing number of devices. Specifically,
we are able to show 2 × 2 MIMO, 3 × 3 MIMO, and 1 × N
single-input multi-output (SIMO), for N ≤ 5 since we only
have 6 USRP nodes. Note that achieving even 2 × 2 MIMO
on a single wire is a first. One could argue that the MIMO
realizations are seemingly possible due to an effect we call
the bottleneck effect. This effect is simply the following. In a
wired network, the capacity is quite high; due to the guided
nature of a wire, the signal is more focused. Therefore, the
sum data rate observed across all the transceivers is effectively
nothing but the capacity between the transceiver closest to each
416
 2023 IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications Workshops and other Affiliated
Events (PerCom Workshops): WIP papers
(a) T R A
B 2x2 MIMO Channel
(b) T R B
M
Fig. 1: Multipath signal propagation. (a) There is only a
direct path between transmitter T and receiver R when there
are no impedance mismatches and circuit branches. This rarely
happens in practical power line infrastructure. (b) When there
is an additional branch, multipath propagation exists in power
line communication.
other being shared by the other transceivers. Thus, the upper
limit on this sum data rate is the capacity of the bottleneck (or
closest) transceiver. In Sec. III, we show that power lines do
not exhibit this bottleneck effect and that our MIMO results
show a sum throughput beyond the capacity of a bottleneck
link.
Contributions. To the best of our knowledge, this is the
first paper that has shown power lines to exhibit spatially
independent channels. This has deep implications for multi-
user techniques on the power line. We also demonstrate the
scalable MIMO architecture on a power line, which can
improve the throughput by exploiting the spatiality of the
power line infrastructure.
Applications. (1) Last-mile network access in rural areas.
People in some developing countries can access electricity.
But, they can barely access the Internet. Leveraging the
existing and ubiquitous power line infrastructure, we can
provide Internet access to them which is quite different from
Google’s Loon [8], Facebook’s Aquila [9], and Microsoft’s
Wi-Fly [10]. Loon and Aquila create custom aerial vehicles
to provide Internet connectivity to remote regions. Wi-Fly
leverages the existing commercial planes to provide Internet
access to remote regions. (2) Enhancing the performance of
hybrid WiFi/PLC network [11], [12], [13] with commercial
off-the-shelf (COTS) PLC adapters. The PLC adapters can
increase the WiFi’s communication range by leveraging the
ubiquitous power line infrastructure in the indoor area. (3)
Enabling ubiquitous connectivity for the internet of everything
at smart home. For example, multiple home-assisted devices
(e.g., Google Home Mini and Amazon Alexa) deployed across
different rooms can talk with one central AP through existing
power line infrastructure due to the crowded wireless spec-
trum.
II. O UR D ESIGN
A. Multipath Propagation on Power Line
When the radio frequency signal propagates through the air,
it is reflected by different objects in the environment. The
receiver receives a combination of signals from the direct path
and a group of reflected signals from reflectors. A power line
network is a complex networking system with many electrical
elements connected through a series of cables. Since the power
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417
C
RX
TX
D
Power Line Grid
Fig. 2: Example of 2 × 2 MIMO architecture. TX node
connects to the A and B positions of the power line. RX node
connects to the C and D positions of the power line. There are
different kinds of loads along the power line, which can create
a rich scattering environment for power line communication
due to impedance mismatch and circuit branching.
line cable and electrical appliances are originally designed
for 50Hz or 60Hz AC power, the power line infrastructure
will create a rich scattering environment for the power line
communication on the frequency of tens of MHz.
A power line network is different from a wireless network.
It consists of a series of connections of branching cables,
power outlets, and different kinds of electrical elements. All
of these elements have different real-valued impedance. So,
the numerous impedance mismatches and circuit branches can
reflect the radio frequency signals. Along a power line, there
are many circuit branches and impedance mismatches which
can create a rich multipath environment. At the receiver side,
the received signals are the combination of signals propagating
through the direct path, and a group of reflected signals from
the numerous circuit branches and the joints of electrical
elements with different impedance.
Let’s start with a very simple topology of the power line
network in Fig. 1(a). There is one transmitter node T and
one receiver node R. They are connected to the power line
cable. When the impedance of the cable, transmitter node,
and receiver node are the same, there is only one direct path
between the transmitter node and receiver node. In Fig. 1(b),
when there is one circuit branch between the transmitter node
and receiver node, the direct path is T → M → R. There are
many reflection paths such as T → M → B → M → R,
T → M → B → M → T → M → R and so
on. As the number of branches and impedance mismatches
increases, the number of reflection paths increases. There
are some measurement studies showing the multipath effect
in the power line infrastructure. For example, in [14], the
channel impulse response is measured in the frequency band
of 0-100MHz, in five North American houses. This impulse
response profile indicates the multipath effect in the power
line infrastructure. Therefore, the multipath property holds in
a complex power line network due to numerous branches and
impedance mismatches.
B. Exploiting Powerline Spatiality
To exploit the powerline spatiality, Instead of connecting to
multiple ports at one position of the power line cable that can
only achieve 2×4 MIMO, we will connect the communication
 2023 IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications Workshops and other Affiliated
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Transmitter Receiver
TX1 RX1
(a) SISO 1.74x Gain
Transmitter Receiver 2.78x Gain
TX2 TX1 RX1 RX2
(b) 2x2 MIMO
Transmitter Receiver
TX3 TX2 TX1 RX1 RX2 RX3
(d) Throughput Gain of 3x3
MIMO and 2x2 MIMO over SISO
Power Line Cable
(c) 3x3 MIMO
Fig. 3: Experiment setup and throughput gain of 2 × 2
MIMO and 3 × 3 MIMO over SISO. (a) SISO: One pair of
transmitter-receiver is deployed on the power line. (b) 2 × 2
MIMO: TX1 and TX2 can be regarded as one transmitter
node, and RX1 and RX2 can be regarded as one receiver
node. (c) 3 × 3 MIMO: TX1, TX2 and TX3 can be one
transmitter node, and RX1, RX2 and RX3 can be one receiver
node. (d) Throughput increases with an increasing number of
transmitter-receiver pairs.
node to one port (e.g., LN port) at different positions of the
power line cable as shown in Fig. 2 (an example of 2 × 2
MIMO). Therefore, MIMO on the power line is enabled by
multipath propagation in the powerline infrastructure across
the different plug points in the powerline infrastructure. In
comparison to the state-of-the-art MIMO-PLC (at most 2 × 4
MIMO), the advantage of our architecture is scalability. In
practice, we just connect the communication node to different
plug points to achieve MIMO communication.
III. B OTTLENECK A NALYSIS
When multiple transceivers share the power line, there is
a segment of the power line that may be common for all
transceivers. We refer to this segment as the bottleneck and
measure the throughput of this bottleneck. To this end, we
want to show the maximum sum throughput achieved is not
limited to the bottleneck’s capacity. Instead, we show that
the sum throughput linearly increases with the number of
transceivers.
A. Experimental Settings
We use up to 6 USRP N210 software defined radios [15] for
our experiments. Each USRP radio is equipped with a WBX
daughter board to transmit or receive signals at a frequency
of 55MHz with 500KHz bandwidth. We use multiple USRP
radios with OctoClock [16]. Each transmitting node feeds the
data through one port such as the LN port to the power line,
and each receiving node receives data through the same port
from the power line. Each node can connect to different plug
points on the power line.
B. Throughput Gain over Multiplexing
Method. One might think that the common path between
the closest transmitter’s plug point and the receiver’s plug point
constrains the maximum sum data rate. To this end, we first
deploy the closest transmitter-receiver pair TX1-RX1 (SISO)
and measure the maximum data rate achieved on it as shown in
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418
Transmitter Receiver
TX1 RX1
(a) SISO
Transmitter Receiver
TX1 RX1 RX2 RX3 RX4 RX5
(b) 1x5 SIMO
Transmitter Receiver
TX2 TX1 RX1 RX2 RX3 RX4
(d) Throughput Gain of 1x5 SIMO and 2x4 MIMO over SISO
Power Line Cable
(c) 2x4 MIMO
Fig. 4: Experiment setup and throughput gain of 1 × 5
SIMO and 2 × 4 MIMO over SISO. (a) SISO: TX1 is
transmitter and RX1 is receiver. (b) 1 × 5 SIMO: TX1 is
transmitter, and RX1, RX2, RX3, RX4 and RX5 can be
regarded as a receiver node. (c) 2 × 4 MIMO: TX1 and TX2
can be a transmitter node, and RX1, RX2, RX3 and RX4 can
be a receiver node. (d) Throughput gain of 1 × 5 SIMO and
2 × 4 MIMO over SISO.
Fig. 3(a). We then add more transmitter-receiver pairs (TX2-
RX2 and TX3-RX3) to this line as shown in Fig. 3(b) and (c)
and measure the maximum data rate achievable for two cases:
2 transmit-receive pairs (2 × 2 MIMO) and 3 transmit-receive
pairs (2 × 3 MIMO), both include the closest (bottleneck) pair.
Note that Fig. 3(b) and (c) are 2 × 2 MIMO and 2 × 3 MIMO
respectively.
Result. Fig. 3(d) illustrates the throughput gain of 2×2 MIMO
and 3 × 3 MIMO over SISO. We can see that the average
throughput gain of 2 × 2 MIMO is 1.74× over SISO. And,
the average throughput gain of 3 × 3 MIMO is 2.78× over
SISO. Therefore, the channel capacity between the closest
transmitter-receiver pair’s plug points is not the throughput
bottleneck, as we increasingly deploy transmitter-receiver pairs
along one power line.
C. Throughput Gain over Transmitter/Receiver Diversity
We have already seen that the throughput gain of 3x3 MIMO
is larger than the throughput gain of 2x2 MIMO and SISO.
There is no throughput bottleneck. To further demonstrate the
scalability and power gain achieved with our design, we show
the throughput gain of 1x5 SIMO and 2x4 MIMO over SISO.
Method. Fig. 4(a) shows SISO setup on power line. Fig. 4(b)
shows a 1 × 5 SIMO setup on a power line, where RX1, RX2,
RX3, RX4, and RX5 can be regarded as one receiver node.
Fig. 4(c) presents a 2 × 4 MIMO setup on a power line, where
TX1 and TX2 can be regarded as one transmitter node and
RX1, RX2, RX3, and RX4 can be regarded as one receiver
node.
Result. Fig. 4(d) illustrates throughput gain of 1 × 5 SIMO
and 2 × 4 MIMO over SISO. We can see that the average
throughput gain of 2×4 MIMO and 1x5 SIMO is around 2.0×
and 1.1× over SISO due to the power gain at the receiver
side. This indicates that our system can capture the power
gain to improve the throughput performance. Therefore, we
can conclude that there is no bottleneck issue in our design.
The main reason is that the multipath effect exists in power
line infrastructure, which can be leveraged to achieve MIMO
communication on the power line.
 2023 IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications Workshops and other Affiliated
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IV. R ELATED W ORK
The state-of-the-art MIMO-PLC architecture [17], [18],
[19], [20] is based on the model described in [21]. In this
architecture, we can use any two ports LN port, LPE port,
and NPE port at the transmitter side. We can use at most four
ports (LN port, LPE port, NPE port, and CM port) on the
receiver side. However, this model is not scalable and has a
high channel correlation, which is illustrated in [22]. Previous
works [17], [18], [23], [6], [21] on improving the throughput
of power line communication with MIMO technique are based
on this MIMO-PLC architecture. For example, [19] measures
the capacity of 2×2 MIMO on a power line, which can achieve
1.9× over the SISO system. [24] shows that the capacity
gain can be improved with the number of RX ports. [18]
presents the linear equalizer (ZF and MMSE) and nonlinear
equalizers (SIC with ZF or MMSE and ordered SIC with ZF
or MMSE) at the receiver side to increase the data rate in
conventional 2 × 4 MIMO-PLC. Authors in [25] leverage the
multi-conductor transmission line (MTL) theory to achieve
MIMO on the power line. However, we need to know a
long list of per-unit length line parameters. [23] leverages the
power line channel model in [20] to formulate the MIMO
power line channel. The authors analyze correlation of 3 × 3
MIMO channel on power line.[6] proposes the MU-MIMO-
OFDM based broadband power line communication structure
to deal with the hardware impairments and cross-talk effects
in conventional MIMO-PLC.
V. C ONCLUSION
We have proposed a new communication architecture on
the power line, which can be scalable and boost the perfor-
mance of power line communication. To do this, we have
demonstrated the independence of powerline channel and there
is no bottleneck effect on the power line when there are
numerous circuit branches and impedance mismatches. In
comparison to the state-of-the-art MIMO-PLC architecture,
our architecture efficiently utilizes the spatiality of power line
infrastructure to achieve high throughput and scalability. Our
architecture exploits the spatiality of power line infrastructure
by connecting communication nodes to different positions
along the power line cable.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We are grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their in-
sightful feedback. This work was supported by the National
Science Foundation under Grant 2007581.
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