On the simulation of the Middleton Class-A noise model for single- and multi-carrier modulation in power line communication

We propose a novel simulation approach of the Middleton Class-A model for impulsive noise generation considering symbol-wise transmission in a real Power Line Communication environment. Then, we validate the proposed approach for both single carrier binary FSK based—and multi-carrier OFDM-based communication systems. Established analytical formulations and obtained simulation results for the impulsive noise variance distribution and the communication system error probability show that in a binary FSK system, the second order of the noise variance per symbol, as well as the error floor, are closely related to the impulsive index A. The error floor decreases when A becomes large, and its asymptotic value is equal to the Bit Error Rate (BER) for an additive white Gaussian noise channel with noise variance equal to the average variance of the impulse noise. However, in an OFDM-based system, the noise variance per symbol at the output of the demodulator, as well as the error floor in the BER curves, are fixed and independent of the impulsive index A. The proposed analysis allows us to compare binary FSK and OFDM under the same theoretical noise conditions.