Abstract. Power Line Carriers (PLC) use carrier frequencies between 9kHz and 100MHz for data transmission over power lines. High pass filters are used to isolate the PLC signal from the existing line frequency (DC, 50Hz , 60Hz etc). PLCs find use in protection signalling, meter reading and data communication. Despite their maturity in the data communications area, they remain an under-exploited resource for sensing. This talk will describe two applications where power line carriers provide an alternate to traditional techniques for fault location and broken conductor identification. The talk will overview transmission of high frequency signals over power lines and applicable signal processing techniques before describing the applications.
Bio. Mike Faulkner received a B.Sc.(Eng) from Queen Mary University of London, UK, and a Ph.D. (1993) from the University of Technology, Sydney, Australia. He is Emeritus Professor in Telecommunications at Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia. He co-founded and led the Centre for Telecommunications and Micro-Electronics (CTME) for many years. Professor Faulkner’s research is in wireless communications and communications on non-standard media such as power line carriers. His original work was in amplifier linearization, and low energy (green) wireless transmitters. He is now an expert in the use of signal processing to correct for radio frequency circuit imperfections and received a prize for an article on this topic in the IET Proceedings on Communications. Prof. Faulkner has been involved in standardization and commercialization activities in the IEE802.11 (WLAN) space and is well connected with the wireless industry. He has supervised research projects in fixed and wireless channel measurements, physical layer signal processing and micro-electronics at frequencies up to 60 GHz. His research interests cover all areas of wireless system design and power line communications. His current activities are focused on sensing faults in power lines using high frequency signals. He has authored or co-authored over 100 publications.
