Page 236 - AI for Good Innovate for Impact

AI for Good Innovate for Impact

2 Use Case Description

2�1 Description

The change in climate characteristics disrupts weather shapes and patterns thereby making it
becoming more extreme and adverse. Climate-inducing terrible weather events have potential
impact on several activities such as in agriculture, transportation, healthcare, transmission, and
so on. Extreme weather events (like temperature, rain, thunderstorms, humidity, etc.) potentially
affect the quality of data transmission over communication networks. The PLC is a wireline-
based communication technology that support simultaneous transmission of electricity and
communication data power lines using the traditional power cabling infrastructures. Climate-
inducing extreme weather events cause several data transmission challenges including;
attenuation, interference, noise, surge, lost, disruption, distortion, and so on. This project
investigates regional extreme weather events and analyses their potential impact on PLC-
supported power lines with respect to data transmission in Peninsular Malaysia and Nigeria.
The project developed an NNR-based ML model accepts weather and predict its impact.

The objectives of the project are;

• Investigate extreme weather events that potentially impact PLC-based power lines in
Malaysia and Nigeria.
• Analyse potential impact of the investigated extreme weather events on PLC-based power
lines with respect to data transmission rate.
• Assess the performance of data rate over regional PLC-based power lines in Malaysia
and Nigeria with reference to ITU-T G.9960 (2008-2023) recommendations on data
performance of wireline-based technologies like telephone, Ethernet, and PLC system.
Some related projects are also used in the assessment for comparison.

This project provides regional weather-based guides to relevant stakeholders (industries,
regulatory bodies, users/consumers, government, etc.) for effective and responsible
implementation, utilization, maintenance, and optimisation of PLC systems.

Use Case Status: This use case is in the research and prototyping stage, with real-world data
collection and model development already conducted for Malaysia and Nigeria.

Partners: Power transmission industries are the major partners in this project. In Nigeria, the
Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) is utilising PLC network system over their power lines.
The system currently undergoing overhaul to replace traditional power cables with high-data
cables due to technical and environmental (weather) challenges. Likewise in Malaysia, the
Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) (a major utility company for electricity) is also assessing similar
challenges, and therefore is replacing copper lines with fiber optic lines for high data delivery
and resilient to tropical weather events of Malaysia.

2�2 Benefits of use case

This project is significant in the utilisation of PLC-based resources that are essential for data
transmission. The analysis in this project ensures responsible usage of data operating under
climate-inducing harsh weather. It provides weather-based references to power stakeholders
on deployment, maintenance, and optimisation of extremely-weather-exposed PLC systems
in Malaysia and Nigeria. The project is transferable to analyse other regions (beyond Malaysia
and Nigeria) and communication technologies (like cellular networks, wireless, satellite, radio/

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