Patent ID: 9692554
Date: 2017-06-27
CPC Classifications: H04B,H04L

Claim:
1. An orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (“OFDM”) power line communication (“PLC”) apparatus, comprising: a negotiation receive mode band segment selector in a receiver coupled to PLC interconnect conductors at a first PLC node to scan a total of M negotiation mode band segments BS1, BS2 . . . BS(M) within a band of interest by selecting at least one set of Q subcarriers {K}={K(1) . . . K(Q)} at a time, each set of subcarriers {K} associated with each of a number N of the M band segments across which an identical scan frame may have been transmitted over a communication link by a transmitter at a second PLC node; a signal-to-noise ratio (“SNR”) calculator communicatively coupled to the receive mode band segment selector to determine an SNR value S(j,q) for each selected subcarrier K(j,q) for which frequency domain symbol information is detected, j being an index indicating the negotiation mode band segment and q being an OFDM signal subcarrier index; an operating band analyzer communicatively coupled to the SNR calculator to analyze SNR values S(1,1) . . . S(M,Q) associated with the subcarriers K(1,1) . . . K(M,Q) across the band of interest and to determine a lowest-frequency subcarrier K_START and a highest frequency subcarrier K_STOP associated with an operating frequency band FB_OP such as to maximize an average SNR for communication across the link.