TRAINING REPORT

STUDY OF POWER LINE COMMUNICATION SYSTEM IN THE POWER SECTOR

AT LOAD DESPATCH & TELECOMMUNICATION DIVISION OF CENTRAL ELECTRICITY AUTHORITY

Report by: Rohit verma ( 0909533062)

DECLARATION BY THE CANDIDATE

As a student of 3rd year from MGM college of engineering & technology, noida ,I hereby declare that the study work entitled POWER LINE CARRIER COMMUNICATON SYSTEM in the POWER SECTOR is an authentic work carried out by us at the Central Electricity Authority (Load Despatch & Telecommunication Division) New Delhi, under the guidance of M.r R.K Tiwari (assistant Director) and towards the partial fulfillment for the award of the degree of B.Tech(ECE).

(Signature of candidate) Rohit verma Univ. Roll no: 090533062

Shri R.K Tiwari Assistant Director (Guide)

Purpose Of Training
Training is an opportunity to the student by corporate in order to gain practical knowledge and understand the functioning of company it inculcates among the trainees dedication and inspiration towards the corporate environment. As a part of training we are given an opportunity to understand, comprehend and appreciate only a few of technicalities that employees face on regular basis. It is a platform for the fresher to be aware of their surroundings and be able to understand the problem face by employees and it helps us to become more independent and make a decision. It inculcates within a student punctuality and regularity. It helps in personality development of the trainee. It is but a blessing in disguise for those aspiring for a bright and prosperous carrer ahead in their life.

CENTRAL ELECTRICITY AUTHORITY

The Central Electricity Authority of India (CEA) is a statutory organization constituted under section 3(1) of Electricity Supply Act 1948, which has been superseded by section 70(1) of the Electricity Act 2003. The CEA advises the government on matters relating to the Natonal Electricity policy and formulates short-term and perspective plans for the development of electricitry systems. Under the Electricity Act 2003, CEA prescribes the standards on matters such as constuction of electrical plants, electric lines and connectivity to the grid, installation and operation of meters and safety and grid standards. The CEA is also responsible for concurrence of hydro power development schemes of central, state and private sectors taking into consideration the factors which will result in efficient development of the river and its tributaries for power generation, consistent with the requirement of drinking water, irragation, navigation and flood control. The CEA plays a lead role in promoting the integrated operations of the regional power grids and evolution of a national grid. The eastern, western and north-eastern grids have been integrated and are operating in a synchronous mode. The eastern grid is connected to the northern as well as southern grid through HVDC back to back links. The western grid is also connected to the northern and southern grid through similar arrangements. The CEA facilitates exchange of power within the country from surplus to deficit regions and with neighbouring countries for mutual benefits.

The CEA advises central overnment, state governments and regulatory commissions on all technical matters relating to generation, transmission and distribution of electricity. It also advises state governments, licenses or generating companies on matters which enable them to operate and maintain the electricity system under their ownership or control in an improved manner.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This is to acknowledge the opportunity extend to me by Central Electricity Authority (Load Despatch & Telecommunication Division), New Delhi in order to pursue my six weeks training. I am extremely grateful to Mr. R.K Tiwari (Assistant Director) whos been a guide, a teacher & a source of inspiration for me during my training. I am thankful for his guidance at various junctions when I was confronted with technicalities of system. I in my part have tried my best not to cause any disturbance to functioning of the company. If I have caused any damage unknowingly then I apologize for the same. I am thankful to the staff and all the co-trainees at CEA (LD&T) for extending their cooperation to complete the work.

POWER LINE COMMUNICATION SYSTEM IN THE POWER SECTOR

LOAD DESPATCH & TELECOMMUNICATION DIVISION (CENTRAL ELECTRICITY AUTHORITY)

Power Line Carrier Communication (PLCC)

Different communication technologies are being used for the transmission of information from one end to another depending on the feasibility and needs. Some include Ethernet cables, fiber optics, wireless transmission, satellite transmission, etc. A vast amount of information travels through the entire earth every day and it creates an essential need for a transmission medium that is not only fast but economically reasonable as well. One of the technologies that fit in the above stated criteria is PLCC. PLCC, Power Line Carrier Communication, is an approach to utilize the existing power lines for the transmission of information. In todays world every house and building has properly installed electricity lines.

By using the existing AC power lines as a medium to transfer the information, it becomes easy to connect the houses with a high speed network access point without installing new wirings. This technology has been in wide use since 1950 and was mainly used by the grid stations to transmit information at high speed. Now a days this technology is finding wide use in building/home automation as it avoids the need of extra wiring. The data collected from different sensors is transmitted on these power lines thereby also reducing the maintenance cost of the additional wiring. In some countries this technology is also used to provide Internet connection.

PLCC
PLCC forms the backbone of POWER TELECOM. PLCC has been the most convienient & reliable because TRANSMISSION LINES itself is the communication medium. Earlier band was only 80khz - 350khz shared with DOT & other users. Through special efforts of CEA it was widened to 50khz 500khz to be shared with DOT & other users. Now 50khz 150khz for power only balance 150khz 500khz shared with others. No further increase in the band is possible due to tech, economic & legal reasons. With introduction of 400 & 800kv systems the REQD. FREQUENCY AVAILABILITY is sometimes impossible.

POWER LINE CARRIER

PLCC utilizes the same transmission line as that used for high voltage transmission. Cost involved in PLCC installation is practically independent of the distance covered for a particular range. Power Lines are robust (Life 40 yrs) and connect the very points, requiring communication. Ready-made right of way available. Useful for limited traffic only. Independent Ownership. Scaricity of carrier frequencies (105 - 4khz )channel. No essential difference between transmission of Electrical Energy in the form of A.C currents at 50hz and transmission of H.F carrier frequency (50 500khz) current. All required is a means of connecting the H.F communication circuit to H.V power line by coupling equipment. Transmission LINE properties vary greatly with frequencies energy losses increase rapidly at higher frequencies. The attenuation of LINE is a function of loss resistance and Z0. Channel Impedance of Line for system planningPhase-to-Earth Coupling Single Conductor 400 2-Conductor bundle 300 4-conductor bundle 300 Phase-Phase Coupling 600 500 500

History
The idea of using an existing medium to send the communication signals is as old as the telegraph itself. But it had not been possible until the recent decades. The first significant step in the field was when two patents were issued to American Telephone and Telegraph Company in the name of 'Carrier Transmission over Power Circuits' in 1920. After four years later in 1924 two other patents were filed for the systems transmitting and receiving communication signals over three phase power lines. Harsh characteristics of the power cables were the key problem in further development. Researchers were involved to overcome the unpredictable characteristics of the power lines. Since the early 1980, spread spectrum power line communication was the main focus of the research. This technology is now developed far better than that initial improvement and is promising a reliable utilization in home automation and security systems.

PRESENT DAY POWER SECTOR COMMUNICATION REQUIREMENT COVER

1. Express/ Dialing Speech Communication 2. Tele-protection 3. Tele-printing 4. Telemetry 5. Tele-control 6. Exchange of Operational Data 7. Management Information System 8. Communication for City Distribution System 9. Project Monitoring & Project Site Communication 10. Computer - Computer Link 11. TELEX , FASCIMILE & Video Conferencing

COMPONENTS USED IN PLCC

The LINE TRAP Imparted in H.V lines , it presents high impedance over appropriate carrier frequency band Thus preventing undue loss of carrier signal power under all power system conditions. It offers low impedance (Negligible), so as not to disturb power transmission. It minimizes interference from carrier systems on adjacent transmission lines. COUPLING CAPACITORS To protect and isolate the low voltage carrier equipment from the HIGH VOLTAGE carrier equipment from the high voltage on the power line. It offers smooth path for carrier frequency and almost infinite impedance to power frequency. Smaller the value of capacitor(pf), coupling capacitor made up of one or more porcelain bushings which house a group of individual capacitors prepared out of oil impregnated paper of aluminium foils, connected in series to share the potential gradient.

COUPLING DEVICE OR COUPLING FILTER

It consists of a line matching unit & priotective device. LMU consists of high insulation transformers used to effect and impedence match between H. V Power Line and the coaxial feeder connecting the HF carrier set. Protective device protects the carrier equipment against any leak in CC by Draining Power frequency currents (Drainage Coil). The protective device consist of a lightning arrestor, a drainage (choke) coil and a switch to achieve protection of HF equipment. The outdoor coupling equipment as a whole is a band-pass filter.

The transformers and tuned circuit are individually contained and prehoused in an outdoor weatherproof cabinet which also contains a high voltage spark gap arrestor.

Applications of PLCC
PLCC technology can be deployed into different types of applications in order to provide economic networking solutions. Hence merging with other technologies it proves useful in different areas. These are few key areas where PLC communications are utilized: a. Transmission & Distribution Network: PLCC was first adopted in the electrical transmission and distribution system to transmit information at a fast rate. b. Home control and Automation: PLCC technology is used in home control and automation. This technology can reduce the resources as well as efforts for activities like power management, energy conservation, etc. c. Entertainment: PLCC is used to distribute the multimedia content throughout the home. d. Telecommunication: Data transmission for different types of communications like telephonic communication, audio, video communication can be made with the use of PLCC technology. e. Security Systems: In monitoring houses or businesses through surveillance cameras, PLCC technology is far useful. f. Automatic Meter Reading Automatic Meter reading applications use the PLCC technology to send the data from home meters to Host Central Station.

Operating Principle
The communication device used for the communication over the power lines is a MODEM, commonly known as Power Line MODEM (PLM). It works as both transmitter and receiver, i.e., it transmits and receives data over the power lines. A power line modem not only modulates the data to transmit it over the power lines and but also demodulates the data it receives from the power lines. By using modulation techniques, binary data stream is keyed on to a carrier signal and then coupled on to the power lines by PLM. At the receiver end another PLM detects the signal and extracts the corresponding bit stream.

The above image shows the working of a PLCC system. Data is processed before transmission on power lines according to the above figure. First data is modulated & filtered and then by using couplers, it is sent over the power lines.

PLC Modems/Transceivers
PLC Transceiver is the key component of a PLCC system. It is the device which transmits & receives data to & from the power lines and acts as a hub between the power stations and our Computers/Network utilization devices. They are wired with the electrical voltage lines at home or business and work on two modes transmit mode and receive mode. In transmit mode, they simply receive data from receiver end installed on the same network and further transmit them. In receive mode, they work the opposite way. A number of companies provide PLC transceivers and other networking devices for PLCC communication. A PLC transceiver is shown in the following image.

Modulation Techniques
As mentioned earlier, characteristics of the power line channel continuously vary with time and load. So conventional modulation techniques like ASK, FSK or PSK cannot be employed with them. PLCC needs a technique that can deal with the unpredictable attenuation and phase shifts. Modulation techniques that opt lower frequency ranges of 35 KHz to 95 KHz can perform better as compared to the ones using the whole available frequency band. OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) is the modulation technique that is used in HomePlug specification network appliances. In OFDM, information is modulated on to multiple carriers, where each carrier occupies its own frequency in the range of 4.3 to 20.9 MHz. Incoming bit stream is demultiplexed into N number of parallel bit streams each with 1/N of original bit rate which are then modulated on N orthogonal carriers. By using multiple carriers at a time, the modulation technique uses the available spectrum most efficiently. During the transmission, each frequency is monitored and if any interference, noise or data loss occurs, the responsible frequency is removed. However this technique does not perform well when a large attenuation and jamming occurs in the communication channel, but still it can be very efficient comparatively.

How signals are superimposed on Power Lines?

There are two different ways by which we can connect a PLC unit with the power lines capacitive coupling and inductive coupling. In capacitive coupling, a capacitor is used to superimpose the modulated signal on to the networks voltage waveform. Another way is inductive coupling which employs an inductor to couple the signal with the networks waveform. No physical connection is required to establish inductive coupling. This makes it safer as compared to capacitive coupling. However this method has higher tendency to lose the signal during coupling.

Important Technical Parameters in PLC Communication

Noise on Residential Power Circuit (RPC): A variety of noises may occur during the communication caused by the home appliances. Following are some of the types: 1. Noise synchronous to the power system frequency (50Hz or 60 Hz) This type of noise is generated because of different kind of switching devices. 2. Noise with a smooth spectrum The sources of such type of noise are the appliances that are not operating synchronously with the power line frequency. For example the small motors with several windings can generate such type of noise. 3. Single Event Impulse Noise Switching of devices, that contain a capacitor, generates such type of noise. The reason is sudden discharge of the capacitor in the RPC. 4. Periodic Noise The type of noise is generated by fluorescent lights, television receivers etc. These are some ways to reduce the noise in between the communication over power lines: a. Implementation of Forward Error Correction (FEC) codes with interleaving can reduce the noise in category 1, 2 and 3. b. Frequency Hopping with the FEC coding can be implemented to deal with the unknown frequencies. c. While modulating the signal on to the power lines, television line frequencies should be avoided.

Signal to Noise Ratio: Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) is a measurement of quality of the signal. It indicates the amount of the noise in a signal. SNR can be formulated in the following way: SNR = Received Power / Noise Power Increasing SNR means increasing the performance of the communication system. By applying noise filters on household appliances, the noise entering into the power system can be reduced. However it will increase the cost of the appliances but is a better solution to improve overall performance. Signal Attenuation: Signal attenuation is basically the reduction in strength of the signal. A signal attenuation of about 100dB/Km occurs for low voltage power lines and 10dB/km for high voltage lines. It creates a need of continuous repeaters over a fixed distance. A number of factors that are responsible for signal attenuation include distance, time, frequency of the signal, etc.

How PLCC technology is used in meter reading?

Automatic Meter Reading using PLCC technology is quite useful as it saves a lot of human efforts and also makes the whole system more efficient. The automatic meter reading system consists of three components, namely, Multifunction Node (MFN), Concentrator & Communication Node (CCN) and Operation & Management System (OMS). Different components and their inter-connections are shown in the figure.

MFN is a unit installed in household meters, either incorporated in the meter itself or externally connected to it. Its function is to take reading of the meter on an hourly basis and store it in a memory chip. CNN is another part which manages all MFNs within a particular area and collects meter readings from all MFNs. It is generally installed on substations and needs a computer. The computer is installed with Operation and Management System (OMS) which further manages all the data and meter readings from CNNs.

PLCC Technology in Home Automation

In modern homes, there is a huge requirement of sending digital information, audio, and video all over the home. Running new wires to support this will increase the burden and cost of maintenance. To overcome this, PLCC is the right choice to implement home automation concept. Home automation or also known as Smart Home technology is a collection of systems and devices in a home that have an ability to interact with each other or function individually in order to be optimized in best way. Using PLCC technology, existing power wirings of the house is used to connect home appliances with each other as well as with internet.

Architecture of a PLCC based home automation system is shown in the above image. Various home appliances are connected within a loop through the existing power cables. This technology can connect each device with the network which is connected to an AC outlet. All appliances are also connected with a centralized control panel which controls them.

PLCC Standards
Proper standardization makes a technology comprehensive and deployable. A few standards pertaining to PLCC exist in different parts of the world. 1. European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization (CENELEC) Countries from the Western Europe formed a standard known as CENELEC standard to standardize the issues and concerns related to power line communication. This standard defines standards for allowed frequency ranges and output voltages for the communication over power lines. A frequency range of 3 to 148.5 KHz is allowed for the communication and this range is further divided in 5 sub-bands. These are according to the following table: Band Frequency Range 3KHz 9KHz A-Band B-Band Usage

C-Band

D-Band

This range is restricted to the Energy Providers. Restricted to the energy providers and their 9KHz-95KHz concession holders Restricted to the energy providers 95KHz-125KHz customers. There is no access rule defined for this frequency range. Restricted to energy providers customers. Simultaneous operations on multiple systems are possible for this frequency band, A 125KHz-140KHz protocol named Carrier Sense Multiple Access Protocol is defined for this using a frequency of 132.5KHz. Restricted to customers. No access protocol 140KHz-148.5KHz is defined for this band.

2.

Federal Communications Commission (FCC)

FCC standardizes the frequency ranges and transmitted power ranges for the power line communications in North America. The allowed base frequencies range from 0 to 530 KHz. 3. HomePlug Powerline Alliance

HomePlug Powerline Alliance is a group of companies dedicated to improve the technology for the networking and communication over power lines. In June 2001, first specification named HomePlug 1.0 was launched. The standard uses a physical layer protocol (PHY) based on 128 equally divided carrier OFDMs (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) from a frequency range of 0 to 25MHz. It uses concatenated Viterbi and Reed Solomon coding for payload data, Turbo product codes for control data and BPSK, DBPSK, DQPSK or ROBO modulation with a cyclic prefix for modulation of the data. 4. IEEE 1901

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) stated a standard named IEEE 1901 for high speed power line communications. This group was formed in 2005 and gave its first standard in 2010 which includes two different physical layers, first one based on OFDM modulation and the other one based on wavelet modulation. Network devices that employ only OFDM physical layer will not be interoperable with the device that employ Wavelet physical layer.

Advantage and Disadvantages:

In order to completely analyze the advantages and disadvantages of PLCC technology, we look into its basic application that is access to telecommunication networks. From the economic standpoint, it is very reasonable to use a pre installed wired network instead of running new wires. It certainly reduces a lot of time & money and so is the biggest advantage of the technology. In many countries, PLCC is becoming a reliable high speed source to get Internet. And in some places, especially in remote areas, PLCC technology thankfully made it possible to avail internet connections. Power line communication is quite different in characteristics than the conventional dedicated wirings. Comparatively, it is a harsh medium and data transfer through it can create a lot of problems. Household appliances like halogen tubes, washing machines, televisions, etc. can become prone to an unpredictable noise and interference in the transmission. Continuous plugging and unplugging of electronic devices makes power line characteristics vary constantly.

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION

INTRODUCTION

Optical fiber has a number of advantages over the copper wire used to make connections electrically. For example, optical fiber, being made of glass or plastic, is immune to electromagnetic interference which is caused by thunderstorms. Also, because light has a much higher frequency than any radio signal we can generate, fiber has a wider bandwidth and can therefore carry more information at one time.

Most telephone company long-distance lines are now of optical fiber. Transmission on optical fiber wire requires repeaters at distance intervals. The glass fiber requires more protection within an outer cable than copper. For these reasons and because the installation of any new wiring is labor-intensive, few communities yet have optical fiber wires or cables from the phone company's branch office to local customers.

HISTORY OF FIBER OPTICS

People have used light to transmit information for hundreds of years. However, it was not until the 1960s, with the invention of the laser, that widespread interest in optical (light) systems for data communications began. The invention of the laser prompted researchers to study the potential of fiber optics for data communications, sensing, and other applications. Laser systems could send a much larger amount of data than telephone, microwave, and other electrical systems. The first experiment with the laser involved letting the laser beam transmit freely through the air. Researchers also conducted experiments letting the laser beam transmit through different types of waveguides. Glass fibers, gas-filled pipes, and tubes with focusing lenses are examples of optical waveguides. Glass fibers soon became the preferred medium for fiber optic research.

Initially, the very large losses in the optical fibers prevented coaxial cables from being replaced. Loss is the

decrease in the amount of light reaching the end of the fiber. Early fibers had losses around 1,000 dB/km to make them impractical for communications use. In 1969, several scientists concluded that impurities in the fiber material caused the signal loss in optical fibers. The basic fiber material did not prevent the light signal from reaching the end of the fiber. These researchers believed it was possible to reduce the losses in optical fibers by removing the impurities. By removing the impurities, construction of low-loss optical fibers was possible. In 1970, Corning Glass Works made a multimode fiber with losses under 20 dB/km. This same company, in 1972, made a high silica-core multimode optical fiber with 4dB/km minimum attenuation (loss). Currently, multimode fibers can have losses as low as 0.5 dB/km at wavelengths around 1300 nm.

TRANSMITTERS

Fiber optic transmitters are devices that include an LED or laser source, and signal conditioning electronics, to inject a signal into fiber. The modulated light may be turned on or off, or may be linearly varied in intensity between two predetermined levels. Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) have relatively large emitting areas and as a result are not as good light sources as laser diodes. However, they are widely used for short to moderate transmission distances because they are much more economical. Laser diodes can couple many times more power to optical fiber than LEDs. They are primarily used for applications that require the transmission of signals over long distances. Important performance specifications to consider

when searching for fiber optic transmitters include data rate, transmitter rise time, wavelength, spectral width, and maximum optical output power. Data rate is the number of data bits transmitted in bits per second. Data rate is a way of expressing the speed of the transceiver. In the approximation of a step function, the transmitter rise time is the time required for a signal to change from a specified

10% to 90% of full power. Rise time is a way of expressing the speed of the transmitter. Wavelength refers to the output wavelength of the transceiver. The spectral width refers to the spectral width of the output signal.

RECEIVERS

Fiber optic receivers are instruments that convert light into electrical Fiber signals. signal optic (PIN) PIN They contain a three and have photodiode and an types of avalanche a large, semiconductor, amplifier. conditioning circuitry,

receivers use photodiodes, photodiodes

photodiodes: positive-negative (PN) junctions, positiveintrinsic-negative photodiodes (APD).

neutrally-doped region between the p-doped and n-doped regions. APDs are PIN photodiodes that operate with high reverse-bias voltages. In short wavelength fiber optic receivers (400 nm to 1100 nm), the photodiode is made of silicon (Si). In long wavelength systems (900 nm to 1700 nm), the photodiode is made of indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs). With low-impedance amplifiers, bandwidth and receiver noise decrease with resistance. With transimpedance amplifiers, the bandwidth of the receiver is

affected by the gain of the amplifier. Typically, fiber optic receivers include a removable adaptor for connections to other devices. Data outputs include transistor-transistor logic (TTL), emitter-coupled logic (ECL), video, radio frequency connectors. (RF), and complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) signals. Also, it uses many types of

FIBER

Fiber is the medium to guide the light form the transmitter to the receiver. It is classified into two types depending on the way the light is transmitted: multimode fiber and single-mode fiber.

Multimode Fiber
Multimode fiber designed to transmit more than one light at a time. Fiber diameter ranges from 50-to-100 micron. Multimode fibers can be divided in to two categories Multimode Step-index Fiber and Multimode Graded-index Fiber.

In Multimode Step-index Fiber the lights are sent at angles lower than the critical angle or straight (or simply the angle is zero). Any light angle exceed the critical angle will cause it to penetrate through cladding (refracted) and being lost as shown in Figure 1. Obviously light with lower angle which has less number of reflection, reach the end faster than those with larger angle and this will result in unstable wave light. To avoid this problem there should be spacing between the light pulses, but this will limit the bandwidth and because of that it is used for very short distance.

Figure 1, Multimode Step-index Fiber

The Multimode Graded-index Fiber designed to reduce the problem in Multimode Step-Index fiber by making all the beams reaching the receiver at the same time. This can be done by slowing down the ones with shorter distance and increasing the speed for ones with longer distance, see Figure 2. This is done in

fiber implementation by increasing its refractive index at the center and gradually decreases it toward the edges. In the Figure 2 we can see the light near the edges is curved until it is reflected, this is due to the refraction caused by the change in density.

Figure 2, Multimode Graded-Index Fiber

Single-Mode Fiber
In single-mode, only one light is transmitted in the fiber which diameter ranges from 8.3 to 10 microns, see Figure 3. Since there is only one light the problem associated with the multimode fiber does not exist and by this we can have a higher transmission rate and also it can be used for longer distance. To utilize the fiber a WaveDivision-Multiplexing (WDM) is used as it will be described later. This type of fiber has been improved over years and that result in three types of single-mode fiber. The first is Non Dispersion-Shifted Fiber (NDSF) which was used to transmit light with wave length 1310 nm, but some systems use it with a wave length of 1550 nm and this wave length causes dispersion (losing pulse mode) with this type of fibers. The second type is Dispersion-Shifted Fiber (DSF), in this type the dispersion is shifted so that the dispersion at the wave length 1550 nm is zero and in this way we could solve the problem of the first. But system with DWDM (Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing) found to be nonlinear with this type of fiber.The term Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing

(DWDM) came from the tremendously increase in use of WDM.

The third type is Non Zero-Dispersion-Shifted Fibers (NZDSF) which is designed to solve the problems with the previous two.

Figure 3, Single-Mode Fiber

FIBER CABLES
As with copper wires optical fiber need to be protected from the surrounding environment. Grouping fibers into one cable has other advantages as well which are Ease of Handling, Protection, Crush Resistance and Degradation. Fiber cables fall into three basic categories: loose tube cable, tightly buffered fiber and ribbon cables.

Loose Tube Cable

In loose tube design, a coated fiber is contained in a tube, with inner diameter much larger than the fiber diameter. To make the fiber move freely inside the tube, it

is installed in a loose helix and also by this the fiber can be protected from the stresses applied to the cable in installation or service, including effects of changing temperature.

Loose tubes can be used without any filling. However if they are to be used outdoors, they are normally filled with a jelly like material. The gel acts as a buffer, keeping out moisture and letting the fibers move in the tube, Figure 4.

Figure 4, Loose Tube Cable

Tightly Buffered Cable

In Tightly Buffered Cable the fiber is coated then encased in plastic layer. The coating is a soft plastic that allows deformation and reduces forces applied to the fiber. The resulted fiber is then surrounded by a harder plastic, to provide physical protection, Figure 5. Tight buffering assures that the fibers are in precisely predictable positions, making it easier to install connectors. A major advantage of tight buffered cable for indoor use is its compatibility with fire and electrical codes.

Although losses are somewhat higher than in loose tube cables, indoor transmission distances are short enough that it's not a problem.

Figure 5, Tightly Buffered Cable

Ribbon Cables
Ribbon Cables have small variation form the tight buffer cables. In Ribbon cable design, the fiber is coated as the case in tight buffer cable. Then a group of the coated fibers is arranged in parallel and then all the fibers are coated with plastic to form a multi-fibre ribbon. This differs from the tight buffered cables in that one plastic layer encases many parallel fibers, see Figure 6. Typical ribbons contain 5 to 12 fibers. Up to 12 ribbons can be stacked together to form the core of a cable.

The simple structure makes a ribbon cable easy to splice in the field; a single splice can connect multiple fibers. Multifibers connectors can also be installed readily.

Figure 6, Ribbon Cables

Wave Division Multiplexing (WDM)

With WDM it is possible to send multiple optical signals from deferent source at the same time on one optical fiber. The data stream from each Source is assigned an optical wavelength. The multiplexer modulates each data stream from each Source. After the modulation process the resulting optical signal generated for each Source data stream is placed on its assigned wavelength. The resulted signals are simultaneously sent through the fiber.

At the User end the multiplexer receives a composite signal. It separates the signal into the original signals according to their different wavelengths by using prisms. These signals are further demodulated. The resulting separated data streams are then provided to the respective Users. The difficult part of the multiplexing process is at the receiver side (demultiplexing). The designers have to put into their considerations for the crosstalk and channel

separation specification

in

the

demultiplexing. how well the

The

crosstalk

expresses

demultiplexer

maintains port-to-port separation. That is each channel should appear only at its intended port. Channel separation describes ability for the demultiplexer to distinguish different wavelengths. In most demultiplexer, the wavelengths must be widely separated allowing light to travel in either direction without the penalty found in splitters.

APPLICATIONS
Due to the advantages of fiber optic over the traditional connectivity networks, networks are being changed to the new technology of fiber optic. Here is some applications use fiber optics for the communication: Long Haul telecommunication systems on land and at sea to carry many simultaneous telephone calls (or other signals) over long distances. These include ocean spanning submarine cables and national backbone networks for telephone and computer data transmission. Interoffice trunks that carry many telephone local N/W and and conversations Connections simultaneously between the between telephone

regional switching facilities. antennas for mobile telephone service. Links among computers and high resolution videoterminals used for such purposes as computer aided design. Transmission of signals within ships and aircraft.

 Local area Networks operating at high speeds or over large areas, and backbone systems connecting slower local area Networks. High speed interconnections between computer and peripherals devices, or between computers, or even within segments of single large.