Multi‐way relaying for cooperative indoor power line communications

Sustaining high data rates over an indoor broadband power line communication (PLC) link is a challenging task due to the significant attenuation of high frequency signals transmitted over power cables. Repeaters are often used to alleviate the problem of signal attenuation, however, this comes at a loss of multiplexing gain. On the other hand, modern relaying concepts, as used in wireless systems, are not as effective in PLC setups due to the absence of diversity improvement. In this study, the authors address this issue and propose a new approach to improve the multiplexing gain of relay‐aided PLC systems. The authors consider a multi‐user indoor PLC scenario where all users want to share their data. For this setup, the authors then advocate the application of amplify‐and‐forward (AF) multi‐way relaying (MWR). Considering the practical constraints of an indoor PLC system, the authors study the achievable data rates of AF MWR, and compare them to those achievable with direct (non‐cooperative) transmission and conventional relaying schemes. The simulations demonstrate that depending on the network topology, MWR can result in significant performance improvement. The authors further discuss how their rate analysis can be exploited to decrease the energy consumption in the system.