ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the implementation of MIMO PLC feasibility in hardware. The demonstrator system allows up to 2 × 4 MIMO with beamforming. The systems allow monitoring several system parameters including the bit rate and channel estimation results. In order to prove the concept of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) for power line communications (PLCs), a feasibility study was being implemented. The MIMO PLC system was designed at Sony EuTEC laboratories and its basic parameters are based on an existing single-input single-output (SISO) PLC system implementation. The number of MIMO streams is indicated at the signal paths by choosing this design, only one quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) mapper and only one orthogonal frequency division multiplex (OFDM) modulation block are required. Channel estimation is based on four OFDM training symbols. These four training symbols are included at the beginning of each burst and are known at the receiver. MIMO requires a special format of the training symbols to estimate all MIMO paths simultaneously.
