Ensemble-Based Short-Window Non-Linear Dynamical Characterization of PLC Impulsive Noise

Impulsive noise significantly degrades the performance of power line communication (PLC) systems due to their non-Gaussian amplitude distribution, burst clustering, and inherent temporal dependence. Conventional statistical and spectral models often describe marginal behavior but do not fully account for the underlying temporal organization of such noise processes. This paper introduces an ensemble-based non-linear dynamical framework for the short-window characterization of impulsive PLC noise using delay-embedded phase-space reconstruction (PSR). Rather than relying on extended stationary recordings, the analysis is conducted across multiple independent short-duration acquisition windows obtained from indoor low-voltage networks. For each realization, the delay parameter is selected using average mutual information, and the embedding dimension is determined through the false nearest neighbors (FNN) criterion. The reconstructed trajectories are then examined using correlation dimension estimation, largest Lyapunov exponent analysis, and recurrence quantification measures. The resulting non-linear descriptors reveal structured phase-space organization and low-dimensional dynamical characteristics that are not readily observable in the original time-domain representation. In addition, these findings show that short-window PLC data preserve meaningful dynamical characteristics and support the use of non-linear geometric descriptors for impulsive PLC noise analysis and future mitigation approaches.