Development of an Embedded Smart Home System

Smart home systems are expected to become key research area for ubiquitous and embedded system computing in coming years. In this thesis, a new scheme in smart home systems technology using embedded system for providing intelligent control of home appliances is proposed. An embedded system act as protocol glue that incorporates wired and wireless option such as Short Message Service (SMS) router with wireless local area network (WI-FI) for intelligent automation and higher speed of home appliances connectivity. The system is implemented in 2 tier models. First-tier model consist of incorporated design of SMS Router and Wireless Access Point. Wireless local area network (WI-FI) is selected as mechanism due to its transmission range within 100m which suits the smart home requirement for automation and control, justifies the Personal Area Network (PAN) for mobile device connectivity. Second tier model consist of remote application server systems, which cater a conceptual model between embedded hardware and software integration of appliances in smart home. This interface model will be between in house networks and external communication environment, whereas embedded system acts as storage media and server for information interchange between systems especially with mobile devices within a smart home. Embedded system sits at the core of the home network, acts as residential gateway and enables bi-directional communication and data transfer channel among networked appliances in the home and across the Internet. On the other hand, client-side application provides a user-friendly Graphic User Interface (GUI) to enhance the usability of the system. The proposed embedded system has been implemented and verified that the system can be a core device for smart home environment functionality

Integration of Patient Health Portals into the German Healthcare Telematics Infrastructure

In this paper we describe a generic model of a patient health portal, which is suitable to implement patient access to the evolving German healthcare telematics infrastructure. The portal uses the telematics as a communication infrastructure to ensure the concise and secure exchange of medical data between professional medical personnel and patients. We aim at providing patients an application platform model for using and enhancing their data by processing or extending them with medical services offered via the internet or with local medical appliances. We show that a) specific functionalities (such as data import/export from/to the telematics) for patient health portals can be derived from the legal foundation in the German law b) the portal is conceptually suited to provide a link between the public health information infrastructure and other (maybe commercial) applications in the e-health environment via Personal Health Records (PHR) and c) patients’ rights can be mapped with a common data model

Remote Control and Monitoring of Smart Home Facilities via Smartphone with Wi-Fly

Due to the widespread ownership of smartphone devices, the application of mobile technologies to enhance the monitoring and control of smart home facilities has attracted much academic attention. This study indicates that tools already in the possession of the end user can be a significant part of the specific context-aware system in the smart home. The behaviour of the system in the context of existing systems will reflect the intention of the client. This model system offers a diverse architectural concept for Wireless Sensor Actuator Mobile Computing in a Smart Home (WiSAMCinSH) and consists of sensors and actuators in various communication channels, with different capacities, paradigms, costs and degree of communication reliability. This paper focuses on the utilization of end users’ smartphone applications to control home devices, and to enable monitoring of the context-aware environment in the smart home to fulfil the needs of the ageing population. It investigates the application of an iPhone to supervise smart home monitoring and control electrical devices, and through this approach, after initial setup of the mobile application, a user can control devices in the smart home from different locations and over various distances

Architectural implications for context adaptive smart spaces

Buildings and spaces are complex entities containing complex social structures and interactions. A smart space is a composite of the users that inhabit it, the IT infrastructure that supports it, and the sensors and appliances that service it. Rather than separating the IT from the buildings and from the appliances that inhabit them and treating them as separate systems, pervasive computing combines them and allows them to interact. We outline a reactive context architecture that supports this vision of integrated smart spaces and explore some implications for building large-scale pervasive systems

Designing appliances for mobile commerce and retailtainment

In the emerging world of the new consumer and the `anytime, anywhere' mobile commerce, appliances are located at the collision point of the retailer and consumer agendas. The consequence of this is twofold: on the one hand appliances that were previously considered plain and utilitarian become entertainment devices and on the other, for the effective design of consumer appliances it becomes paramount to employ multidisciplinary expertise. In this paper, we discuss consumer perceptions of a retailtainment commerce system developed in collaboration between interactivity designers, information systems engineers, hardware and application developers, marketing strategists, product development teams, social scientists and retail professionals. We discuss the approached employed for the design of the consumer experience and its implications for appliance design

Sustainability and the Development of an Energy Efficient Housing Stock: a review of some theoretical issues

Global stabilisation of carbon emissions may require emission reductions of 60 percent in the first half of the next century and governments are placing increasing importance on energy efficiency in carbon abatement policies. However a large gap exists between what is possible and what has been achieved to date. This paper seeks to discuss the fundamental issues which should be addressed in the definition and application of energy efficiency policy designed to close the gap. It also addresses the likely impact of take-back effects (the Brookes-Khazzom postulate). The paper argues that despite the considerable work on the problem, the mechanisms which determine the propensity of individuals and organisations to invest in efficiency improvements are not well understood and that greater attention should be paid to motivational factors if a more complete understanding is to emerge

Integration of Legacy Appliances into Home Energy Management Systems

The progressive installation of renewable energy sources requires the coordination of energy consuming devices. At consumer level, this coordination can be done by a home energy management system (HEMS). Interoperability issues need to be solved among smart appliances as well as between smart and non-smart, i.e., legacy devices. We expect current standardization efforts to soon provide technologies to design smart appliances in order to cope with the current interoperability issues. Nevertheless, common electrical devices affect energy consumption significantly and therefore deserve consideration within energy management applications. This paper discusses the integration of smart and legacy devices into a generic system architecture and, subsequently, elaborates the requirements and components which are necessary to realize such an architecture including an application of load detection for the identification of running loads and their integration into existing HEM systems. We assess the feasibility of such an approach with a case study based on a measurement campaign on real households. We show how the information of detected appliances can be extracted in order to create device profiles allowing for their integration and management within a HEMS

The Design of a new NICU Patient Area: Combining Design for Usability and Design for Emotion

In the design of medical products both usability and emotional experience are important to be considered. Usability can enhance the work situation of medical staff and ensure patient safety. Emotion related product aspects, on the other hand, influence the recovery pace of patients as well as the work satisfaction of staff. For an optimal medical design both aspects should receive well-balanced attention during the design process. Usability and emotional experience are currently related in literature. However, about the relation between these two aspects in practical design projects little information is available. Therefore we will discuss the exploration of the practical relation between Design for Usability and Design for Emotion in a design process. We explored the relation during concurrent application of both design approaches to the design of a patient area for a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). Our aim was not to develop a new design method, but to explore in practice how both design approaches could be addressed concurrently. This paper describes the applied design approach, its strength and weaknesses as well as the design results. Overall, the NICU design case has proven that the concurrent application of Design for Emotion and Design for Usability is feasible in practice and results in a satisfactory design. Keywords: Usability; Design For Emotion; Medical Appliance; Participatory Design; Case Study</p

Federated Robust Embedded Systems: Concepts and Challenges

The development within the area of embedded systems (ESs) is moving rapidly, not least due to falling costs of computation and communication equipment. It is believed that increased communication opportunities will lead to the future ESs no longer being parts of isolated products, but rather parts of larger communities or federations of ESs, within which information is exchanged for the benefit of all participants. This vision is asserted by a number of interrelated research topics, such as the internet of things, cyber-physical systems, systems of systems, and multi-agent systems. In this work, the focus is primarily on ESs, with their specific real-time and safety requirements. While the vision of interconnected ESs is quite promising, it also brings great challenges to the development of future systems in an efficient, safe, and reliable way. In this work, a pre-study has been carried out in order to gain a better understanding about common concepts and challenges that naturally arise in federations of ESs. The work was organized around a series of workshops, with contributions from both academic participants and industrial partners with a strong experience in ES development. During the workshops, a portfolio of possible ES federation scenarios was collected, and a number of application examples were discussed more thoroughly on different abstraction levels, starting from screening the nature of interactions on the federation level and proceeding down to the implementation details within each ES. These discussions led to a better understanding of what can be expected in the future federated ESs. In this report, the discussed applications are summarized, together with their characteristics, challenges, and necessary solution elements, providing a ground for the future research within the area of communicating ESs