Outage Probability and Energy Efficiency of DF Relaying Power Line Communication Networks

This paper analyzes the energy efficiency performance of decode-and-forward (DF) cooperative relaying power line communication (PLC) systems. In order to further minimize the energy consumption of such systems, we propose incremental DF relying for the frequency selective PLC channel contaminated with impulsive noise. For a more realistic scenario, the PLC modems power consumption profile is assumed to consist of both dynamic power and static power. For the sake of comparison and completeness as well as to quantify the achievable gains, we also analyze the performance of single-hop PLC systems. In this respect, accurate analytical expressions for the outage probability and energy efficiency are derived for the single-hop, conventional DF relaying and incremental DF relaying systems. Monte Carlo simulations are provided throughout the paper to validate the analysis. Results reveal that the proposed incremental DF relaying system is able to provide better energy efficiency performance compared to the other two systems. It is also shown that increasing the noise probability and/or the modems static power can negatively impact the system performance.