Performance of MIMO PLC in measured channels affected by correlated noise

We study the performance improvement provided by the use of precoding schemes in multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) power line communications (PLC) in the presence of additive colored and correlated Gaussian noise. We assume a power spectral density constraint, according to the HomePlug AV2 standard, and we focus on a 2 × 4 MIMO system, thus exploiting also the common mode at the receiver side. The MIMO channels have been obtained through an experimental measurement campaign across Europe, collected by the ETSI special task force 410. We compare the performance (in terms of capacity) when the power allocation is optimal or uniform. Furthermore, a comparison with the single-input single-output (SISO) and reduced-dimension MIMO configurations is made, showing as the 2 × 4 MIMO scheme outperforms the others.