Power line communication method for the simultaneous transmission of power and digital data by cascaded H-bridge convertersPower line communication method for the simultaneous transmission of power and digital data by cascaded H-bridge converters Peer-Reviewed Journal Publication Δημοσίευση σε Περιοδικό με Κριτές 2023-11-092022enThis work was supported by the European Regional Development Fund of the European Union and Greek National Funds through the Operational Program Competitiveness, Entrepreneurship, and Innovation, under the call Research– Create–Innovate under Project T1EDK-01485.Power line communication (PLC) enables the interconnectivity and interoperability of distributed power production units in smart grids and microgrids by using existing cabling to monitor and control the overall power system. In this article, a novel PLC method for cascaded H-bridge converters is proposed, which is based on the use of the circuits of the individual power modules for the transmission of both power and digital information. Compared to the existing PLC approaches, the method proposed in this article combines the advantages of applicability to cascaded H-bridge structures with either a dc or an ac output, avoidance of using an additional power amplifier or coupling circuit for the transmission of information and independence from the implementation scale and the type of the power-supplied load. The design of both the proposed data transmitter and receiver units on field-programmable gate array devices is presented in the article. The proposed PLC system has been applied to an experimental prototype of a two-cell cascaded H-bridge inverter. The experimental results verified the successful transmission of telemetry data through the power converter circuit and their retrieval by a receiver attached in the power loop, along with the simultaneous transmission of power to the load.http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics371012793-12804 Mandourarakis Ioannis Μανδουραρακης Ιωαννης Koutroulis Eftychios Κουτρουλης Ευτυχιος Karystinos Georgios Καρυστινος Γεωργιος Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Cascaded H-bridge Data transmission Multilevel inverter Power converter Power line communication (PLC) Telemetry