Description

This reference design is a single-board System on Module(SOM) for industrial PLC in the Cenelec frequency band. This TI implementation of Power Line Communications (PLC) is a new option for adding communications to industrial equipment such as solar arrays.PLC Lite™ offers higher data throughput than earlier forms of PLC and greater robustness for transmission across noisy electric lines by using OFDM PHY technology. The industrial PLC achieves up to 21 kbps data rates across AC or DC power lines compared to traditional SFSK PLC solutions (2-5 kbps) all while decreasing the overall BOM cost of a typical PLC modem. Engineers can take the SOM design and integrate it into their overall system board or keep the design as an add-on board to their application. The only additional hardware required is the AC mains line coupling circuitry. The included hardware schematics and Gerber files simplify the task for engineers to add PLC to their end system. OEMs will benefit from having the ability to rapidly evaluate and prototype Power Line Communications technology in their application.