Multiuser Communication through Power Talk in DC MicroGrids

TL;DR

This paper introduces power talk, a novel communication method for DC MicroGrids that uses power electronics to transmit information via subtle power deviations, enabling all-to-all communication without dedicated modems.

Contribution

It develops power talk strategies for arbitrary multi-unit DC MicroGrids, including TDMA and full duplex approaches, with techniques to handle load variations for reliable communication.

Findings

Power talk enables effective all-to-all communication in DC MGs.

Training sequences improve reliability under load variations.

The proposed methods demonstrate practical feasibility.

Abstract

Power talk is a novel concept for communication among control units in MicroGrids (MGs), carried out without a dedicated modem, but by using power electronics that interface the common bus. The information is transmitted by modulating the parameters of the primary control, incurring subtle power deviations that can be detected by other units. In this paper, we develop power talk communication strategies for DC MG systems with arbitrary number of control units that carry out all-to-all communication. We investigate two multiple access strategies: 1) TDMA, where only one unit transmits at a time, and 2) full duplex, where all units transmit and receive simultaneously. We introduce the notions of signaling space, where the power talk symbol constellations are constructed, and detection space, where the demodulation of the symbols is performed. The proposed communication technique is challenged by the random changes of the bus parameters due to load variations in the system. To this end, we employ a solution based on training sequences, which re-establishes the signaling and detection spaces and thus enables reliable information exchange. The presented results show that power talk is an effective solution for reliable communication among units in DC MG systems.