# Broadband Power Line Communication for Integration of Energy Sensors within a Smart City Ecosystem
## 2 State of the Art
### Related Works
#### 2.3.5 Conclusion of Related Works  
The analysis of four areas of PLC simulations and measurements gives an overview of significant works and creates the main background for this paper. These areas were selected by the content focus on the simulation software of PLC technology, especially BPLC. NPLC simulations are less examined, due to the focus of this paper. Simulation scenarios in the related works are mostly related to smart grid and smart metering infrastructures. In this section, the simulators' availability, abilities, and features were given. From this, the NS-3 simulator can be considered sufficiently complex and usable for PLC technologies. Tables 1 and 2 reviews of published works where the potential and application issue of simulators are described.  
The next target of the analysis was to find papers where a comparison of simulation of the real topology with the corresponding real measurement is demonstrated. This group of works present a demonstration of real infrastructures with relevant simulations of PLC systems. As they often focus on general verification, an advanced description of the topology or modem setup may be missing. It has also been found that some works vaguely feature a targeted communication medium i.e., low-voltage and medium-voltage. These types of power lines are especially used in smart grids, which is also the  
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c} \hline \hline
**Ref.** & **Year** & **Content Focus** & **Band** & **Line** \\ \hline
[60] & 2013 & Measurement of hybrid smart grid architecture with NPLC & 1–20 kHz & LV \\ \hline
[61] & 2018 & Measurement of HomePlug AV2 system with RFC tests & 2–86 MHz & LV \\ \hline
[8] & 2019 & Measurement of BPLC system on the topology without branches with RFC testing & 3–30 MHz & MV \\ \hline
[62] & 2015 & Measurement of hybrid SCADA architecture with NPLC & 36–136 kHz & LV \\ \hline
[63] & 2015 & Measurement of hybrid architecture including 1x NPLC on LV & 2–12 MHz & LV \\  & (2–12 MHz) and 2x BPLC on MV (2–7 MHz; 8–18 MHz) & 2–18 MHz & MV \\ \hline
[66] & 2019 & Measurement of two BPLC systems (proprietary and standardized) on the line topologies without repeaters & 3–13 MHz & LV/MV \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table}
Table 5: Papers dealing with performed measurements of PLC systems under real conditions.  
reason for the focus of this analysis. The next parameter of the analyzed works was the frequency band for communication. Usually the full range of the band is given without other description or a direct comparison to a possible standard. A very small part of this work considers improvements of the PLC system in terms of adaptation of communication devices adaptation, due to the conditions of the power line.  
Therefore, it can be concluded that it is desirable to implement simulations of specific and current PLC systems (which are in demand in the commercial sphere) in order to give rise to work that can contribute to a more accurate assessment of PLC technology/systems before deployment. The last group of analyzed works deal largely with simulations--real measurements of the PLC system. Data from these works should serve as input parameters for the given simulations, provided that specific information on the given topology and location is given. This includes the distances between nodes, the type of cable, the expected temperature, the ambient humidity, and the age of the cables. All these specific parameters affect BPL communication. Therefore, the correct specification of the communication medium at the level of primary and secondary parameters is essential in simulations.  
Often, simulation together with on-field measurement on LV voltage is missing or insufficiently published. Accordingly, our own results are also listed. Therefore, this article focuses on throughput simulation for real topology together with on-field measurement for verification of simulation results.