Power Talk in DC Micro Grids: Constellation Design and Error Probability Performance

TL;DR

This paper introduces a channel model for power talk in DC micro grids, designs symbol constellations, analyzes error probabilities, and proposes adaptive modulation to enhance communication performance.

Contribution

It presents a Thevenin equivalent-based channel model for power talk in DC MGs and develops adaptive modulation techniques for improved reliability.

Findings

Channel state can be estimated by both transmitter and receiver.

Designed symbol constellations of arbitrary order.

Adaptive modulation significantly improves error performance.

Abstract

Power talk is a novel concept for communication among units in a Micro Grid (MG), where information is sent by using power electronics as modems and the common bus of the MG as a communication medium. The technique is implemented by modifying the droop control parameters from the primary control level. In this paper, we consider power talk in a DC MG and introduce a channel model based on Thevenin equivalent. The result is a channel whose state that can be estimated by both the transmitter and the receiver. Using this model, we present design of symbol constellations of arbitrary order and analyze the error probability performance. Finally, we also show how to design adaptive modulation in the proposed communication framework, which leads to significant performance benefits.