Broadband MIMO powerline channel emulator

Testing Broadband powerline modems was challenging in the past but will become much more challenging in the near future. Todays PLC modems mostly use SISO technology which means that they transmit and receive their data only between live an neutral wires. New PLC standards like HomePlug AV2.0 [1] or ITU-T G.hn G9963 [2] allow MIMO transmission by using the protective earth wire as additional transmission path. This paper presents a flexible FGPA based broadband PLC channel emulator which allows very reliable and reproducible testing of MIMO PLC modems.