Relaying Protocols for In-Home PLC

This chapter considers the specific and peculiar application of relaying in the in-home power line communication (PLC) scenario. It also considers a network whose nodes have a physical layer (PHY) layer based on orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) and where the communication between the source and the destination nodes follows an opportunistic protocol, namely, the relay is used whenever it allows: (1) for achievable rate improvements under a power spectral density (PSD) mask constraint or (2) for power saving under a PSD mask and a rate target constraint. Opportunistic decode and forward (ODF) and opportunistic amplify and forward (OAF) are considered. According to experimental evidence and norms, a statistically representative in-home power line channel generator has been developed. It is representative of EU topologies and it uses a statistical topology model together with the computation of the channel responses through the application of transmission line theory.