Performance of Power Line Communication Systems Using MC-CDMA Transmission Techniques

In this paper, the performance improvement in multi-carrier direct-sequence code-division multiple-access (MC-CDMA) power line communication (PLC) systems using partial parallel interference cancellation (PPIC) multiuser detectors is investigated. The high data rate demanded in the multimedia PLC systems can be offered by the MC-CDMA systems. However, the multiple access interferences (MAIs) exist in the frequency selective fading channels for the down link even though using an orthogonal PN code and occur for the up link due to the non-orthogonal spreading codes. In the high system load, the MAIs become the dominant factor degrading the performance. Therefore, the performance of a multistage PPIC is further investigated for the MC-CDMA PLC systems. Simulation results show that with adequate cancellation weights, the PPIC scheme can obtain a superior performance than the conventional PIC scheme, especially at heavy system load. Furthermore, with the BER requirements of 0.001, the five-stage PPIC with PCWs, 0.7, 0.8, 0.9 and 1 for stage 2, 3, 4 and 5, respectively, increases the capacity from 15 of CPIC to 19 users with the processing gain 32 over the power line channels.