Abstract
Abstract : Power line communications (PLC) and visible light communications (VLC) are two emerging communication technologies which have several similarities. Among them, the advantage related to cost effectiveness is considered as a strong research motivation. These two technologies are also characterized by the fact that each one of them barely form a complete communication system without the need of other supporting technologies. Furthermore, the recent successful development and standardization of the PLC (ITUT G.9960/61, CENELEC EN50065-1, IEEE 1901) and VLC (IEEE 802.15.7), has resulted in lots of research interests in consideration to the integration of the PLC and VLC technologies. In this dissertation, based on the positive aspect of VLC technology, we exploit the Hermitian symmetry to design a hybrid system combining PLC and VLC technologies using orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM). A DC biased optical OFDM (DCO-OFDM) and asymmetrically clipped optical OFDM (ACO-OFDM), employed in VLC, are investigated when combined with PSK-OFDM, used in PLC. The proposed hybrid PLC-VLC system in this dissertation takes advantage of the inherent nulling feature of the DCO/ACO-OFDM to mitigate impulse noise that is present in the PLC channel, where the optimal threshold, 𝑇𝑛/𝑇𝑐 used to combat the impulse is investigated through simulations. While on the other hand taking advantage of the fact that both DCO/ACO-OFDM and PSK-OFDM employ the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), to achieve a simplified system.
M.Phil. (Electrical Engineering)