UCLA

This thesis analyzes different physical layer communications in Home Area Network (HAN) with emphasis on Power Line Communication (PLC). The thesis serves as a general reference and design guideline for deploying HANs through a comprehensive analysis of different protocols, standards and their respective characteristics. Initially, seven HAN design requirements are proposed followed by an evaluation of how well specific techniques fulfill these requirements. Four most widely used wireless techniques, namely Zigbee, Z-Wave, Low Power Wifi (LP-Wifi) and PLC are studied and compared. In order to better understand PLCs, the challenges associated with it are discussed with a special focus on its noise source. Two most widely used PLC protocols, HomePlug and LonWorks are thoroughly investigated; and three typical HANs, multi-family, commercial building and public parking lot are studied. The differences between these three HANs are carefully analyzed and PLC based HAN designs for these scenarios are presented, being representative for most HAN scenarios.