Heterogeneous wireless/power line communication networks for energy metering and control

We describe an heterogeneous network composed by wireless links and a power line communication (PLC) infrastructure, using the public lighting system. The network is designed to allow measuring energy consumption, in an urban scenario with a large number of nodes, and to remotely control the lighting system for optimal energy usage. For the specific scenario where the network topology is often known a priori, we propose a tool for network planning based on the simulation of the power line channel. Moreover, to improve PLC link throughput and reliability we analyzed the possiblity to use multiple conductors to enable Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) techniques. Finally, we described a testbed of the network that allow measuring energy consumption, in an urban scenario with a large number of nodes, and to remotely control the lighting system for optimal energy usage.