The Kinects® Solution
How Does It Work
The Kinects® PLC technology is an innovative low-cost way of sending digital data through electrical power distribution lines. The Kinects® transceiver, which can transmit and receive data, is compact in size (about the size of 2 decks of cards end to end). Simply plugging it into a regular power outlet in a home or business not only provides power to the unit, but also connects it to the power line system, which it uses to send and receive data signals.
The Kinects® Solution Advantage
Most currently available PLC technologies are not able to send and receive data signals through the local distribution transformers. The few that do, typically require installation of expensive equipment either at the utility substation or elsewhere on the grid. The Kinects® technology allows data to pass efficiently through the local distribution transformer and travel along the high-voltage distribution lines without interruption, all with no additional system operating costs.
Competitive systems are faced with both additional cost and inefficiency because they require the installation of expensive couplers/ repeaters, bypass equipment or data collection units at each utility substation. Kinects® unique technology avoids all this additional equipment and expense because of its bi-directional communication through the distribution transformer.
Unique Proprietary Technology
Two key technological advances from Kinectrics have made this breakthrough possible. The first is a special signal transmitter, which achieves high levels of energy efficiency when driving an ultra-low impedance load. Using a patented system having a resonant network and micro-controller, strong signals can be transmitted into the low impedance power line using a minimal amount of energy. The second technical achievement is in the receiver that uses a patented digital algorithm to decode data from the received signals. This enables a much higher signal-to-noise ratio, and also prevents interference from power line harmonics.
To date, powerline communication has been successfully tested over a 30 km feeder line, with the possibility that even greater distances will be demonstrated in future.