Powerline Communication Software Releases

1. Real-Time Testbed for Simultaneous Powerline and Wireless Smart Grid Communications. The release includes National Instruments LabVIEW software to simultaneously transmit and receive on a powerline channel and a wireless channel to improve reliability in the received data. The software will run on a wide variety of NI hardware, and the software release includes a description of the hardware setup used in our testbed. Version 2.0 (March 29, 2017) and Version 1.0 (Sept. 14, 2016).

2. Approximate message passing (AMP) receiver. AMP algorithm for decoding complex-valued orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) signals. The algorithm estimates the impulsive noise observed on the null tones at the receiver to subtract out an estimate of the impulsive noise in the current OFDM frame. The AMP algorithms models the impulsive noise using a two-term Gaussian mixture model. Version 1.0 (June 5, 2013) contains two components:
   • LabVIEW project containing DSP Diagrams and Virtual Instruments (VIs) for mapping the GAMP transceiver onto three FPGAs (46 MB)
   • MATLAB code for converting the receiver from floating-point to fixed-point data and arithmetic (5 kB)
   The design flow to map the AMP transceiver onto three FPGAs is described in [1].

3. Sparse Bayesian learning (SBL) decoder. SBL algorithm (June 4, 2012) for decoding complex-valued orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) signals. The algorithm estimates the impulsive noise observed on the null tones at the receiver to subtract out an estimate of the impulsive noise in the current OFDM frame. The SBL algorithms learns the distribution of the impulsive noise in each frame.
   • SBL decoder in Matlab
   • SBL decoder demonstration in LabVIEW
   The Matlab code might rely on functions in Matlab toolboxes. To run the LabVIEW code, you could either download a 45-day trial of LabVIEW or download the free LabVIEW runtime engine. The LabVIEW runtime engine would allow you to run but not modify LabVIEW programs.

4. Interference Modeling and Mitigation Toolbox. Version 1.6 (April 1, 2011) provides a simulation environment for generating, modeling and mitigating impulsive noise. Impulsive noise models acoustic noise, powerline noise, and radio frequency interference. The Matlab code might rely on functions in Matlab toolboxes.

References

1. K. F. Nieman, M. Nassar, J. Lin and B. L. Evans, "FPGA Implementation of a Message-Passing OFDM Receiver for Impulsive Noise Channels", Proc. Asilomar Conf. on Signals, Systems, and Computers, Nov. 3-6, 2013, Pacific Grove, CA.

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