OFDM System Simulation for Low-Voltage Power Line Carrier Communication

Low-voltage power line carrier (PLC) communication utilizes existing power lines for data transmission, offering advantages such as wide coverage and no need for additional wiring infrastructure. However, the power line environment is complex, characterized by noise interference and multipath effects, necessitating efficient modulation techniques and robust channel estimation methods.

Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) technology effectively mitigates multipath fading and improves spectral efficiency, making it widely adopted in PLC systems. This paper discusses a compressed sensing (CS)-based channel estimation approach, which achieves higher estimation accuracy with fewer pilot symbols compared to traditional Least Squares (LS) algorithms. In implementation, CS algorithms leverage sparse signal recovery techniques (e.g., using L1-norm minimization via MATLAB's l1eq_pd function or CVX toolbox) to reconstruct channel responses from limited pilot data.

In simulation experiments, performance comparisons were conducted by varying pilot quantities, validating the effectiveness of compressed sensing in low-voltage power line environments. Results demonstrate that CS maintains superior estimation performance under high-noise conditions, whereas LS algorithms exhibit significantly increased estimation errors with reduced pilot counts. The simulation provides references for optimizing power line carrier communication systems, with code implementations typically involving OFDM modulation/demodulation blocks, pilot insertion logic, and channel estimation modules using MATLAB's signal processing functions.