Retransmission as a Replacement Forward Error Correction in Noiseless LV Networks used for Narrowband PLC

The article describes a project concerned with deploying PLC technology in railway light signals. The proposal increases reliability of communication between railway light signals and the railway automation center, relying on frame retransmissions instead of the FEC technique. The paper presents the results of long-term FER measurements performed in a narrowband PLC-based communication system. The said results are used as communication reliability metrics. Deployment of dual channels in order to increase communication reliability is discussed as well, as is efficiency of FEC-based convolutional coding. The results are verified in a real world environment.