PLM daughter board kit creates instant network

The power-line soft-modem technology, supported by the PLM PICtail Plus daughter board, enables consumer and industrial products to communicate using the same wiring that provides power, thus creating an instant network at a low system and deployment cost.

Based on the scalable dsPIC33F Digital Signal Controller (DSC) architecture, the board uses a Binary Phase Shift Keying (BPSK) modulation scheme and operates in the popular consumer frequency band.

The soft modem interfaces with Microchip's Explorer 16 development board and is supported with royalty-free schematics, demo code and software in source-code format, all of which can be downloaded from Microchip's website.

Applications for power-line communication can be implemented wherever there is an energy flow, such as in-home energy monitoring and control, industrial power-supply controllers, server farms, street lighting and more.

Microchip's PLM PICtail 0Plus daughter board development kit has two nodes for out-of-the-box point-to-point communication, enabling designers to run a selection of demos on the PLM PICtail Plus daughter board within minutes.

The BPSK modulation scheme provides a robust method that performs well in noisy environments, and supports software selection of the data rate of the power-line soft modem.

By supporting the wide range of dsPIC33F DSCs, the PLM PICtail Plus daughter board allows designers to select a device that optimises performance and cost in each individual application.

The PLM PICtail Plus daughter board (AC164142) is priced at $225 and includes two daughter boards and two sets of high-voltage adapter cables.

It includes royalty-free schematics, demo code and software in source-code format, and is supported by the free MPLAB IDE.