Where PLC Meets Wireless: Communications for Massive IoT and Smart Gr...

The talk discusses challenges and opportunities for telecommunication technology in IoT and smart grids applications. In reference to the latter, the introduction of renewables and the goal of increasing efficiency and reliability is revolutionizing the energy grids. Energy grids must become intelligent and be able to manage energy flows and flexibly adapt to changes in production and demand. This paradigm has fostered the creation of new business models on top of technology advances. The physical infrastructure must embed sensing, communication and processing capabilities. In the talk, emphasis is given to the requirements posed by massive networks, and to the approaches for massive connectivity offered by new wireless and power line communication technologies, e.g., 4G-5G cellular machine type communications, long range and low power wireless access, as well as narrow band and broadband PLC for IoT. Advances in power line communications are presented, and in particular PLC wireless hybridization, applications of PLC to enable grid diagnostics by processing high frequency signals, and machine learning tools for PLC.