Multi-service, Multi-protocol Management for Residential Gateways

International audienceWhen providing services to home users, management is a key activity. In-home devices, and especially the Residential Gateway, can use multiple management technologies for multiple management activities: read/write parameters, but also deploy, update, start and stop software components. This paper defines management realms around the Residential Gateway, where different actors perform different management activities, using different technologies. We propose techniques that integrate these technologies (TR-069, UPnP, NetConf and JMX). We also address transient issues related to security

A Home E-Health System for Dependent People Based on OSGI

This chapter presents a e-health system for dependent people installed in a home environment. After reviewing the state of art in e-health applications and technologies several limitations have been detected because many solutions are proprietary and lack interoperability. The developed home e-health system provides an architecture capable to integrate different telecare services in a smart home gateway hardware independent from the application layer. We propose a rule system to define users’ behavior and monitor relevant events. Two example systems have been implemented to monitor patients. A data model for the e-health platform is described as well.Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia TSI2006-13390-C02-0

Equipment management trial : final report

Executive Summary The Equipment Management (EM) trial was one of the practical initiatives conceived and implemented by members of The Application Home Initiative (TAHI) to demonstrate the feasibility of interoperability between white and brown goods, and other domestic equipment. The trial ran from October 2002 to June 2005, over which period it achieved its core objectives through the deployment in early 2005 of an integrated system in trials in 15 occupied homes. Prior to roll out into the field, the work was underpinned by soak testing, validation, laboratory experiments, case studies, user questionnaires, simulations and other research, conducted in a single demonstration home in Loughborough, as well as in Universities in the East Midlands and Scotland. Throughout its life, the trial faced significant membership changes, which had a far greater impact than the technical issues that were tackled. Two blue chip companies withdrew at the point of signing the collaborative agreement; another made a major change in strategic direction half way through and withdrew the major portion of its backing; another corporate left at this point, a second one later; one corporate was a late entrant; the technical leader made a boardroom decision not to do the engineering work that it had promised; one company went into liquidation; another went up for sale whilst others reorganised. The trial was conducted against this backdrop of continual commercial change. Despite this difficult operating environment, the trial met its objectives, although not entirely as envisaged initially – a tribute to the determination of the trial’s membership, the strength of its formal governance and management processes, and especially, the financial support of the dti. The equipment on trial featured a central heating/hot water boiler, washing machine, security system, gas alarm and utility meters, all connected to a home gateway, integrated functionally and presented to the users via a single interface. The trial met its principal objective to show that by connecting appliances to each other and to a support system, benefits in remote condition monitoring, maintenance, appliance & home controls optimisation and convenience to the customer & service supplier could be provided. This is one of two main reports that form the trial output (the other, the Multi Home Trial Report, is available to EM Trial members only as it contains commercially sensitive information). A supporting library of documents is also available and is held in the virtual office hosted by Loughborough University Centre for the Integrated Home Environment

Simulation support for internet-based energy services

The rapidly developing Internet broadband network offers new opportunities for deploying a range of energy, environment and health-related services for people in their homes and workplaces. Several of these services can be enabled or enhanced through the application of building simulation. This paper describes the infrastructure for e-services under test within a European research project and shows the potential for simulation support for these services

Analysis of key aspects to manage Wireless Sensor Networks in Ambient Assisted Living environments

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) based on ZigBee/IEEE 802.15.4 will be key enablers of non-invasive, highly sensitive infrastructures to support the provision of future ambient assisted living services. This paper addresses the main design concerns and requirements when conceiving ambient care systems (ACS), frameworks to provide remote monitoring, emergency detection, activity logging and personal notifications dispatching services. In particular, the paper describes the design of an ACS built on top of a WSN composed of Crossbow's MICAz devices, external sensors and PDAs enabled with ZigBee technology. The middleware is integrated in an OSGi framework that processes the acquired information to provide ambient services and also enables smart network control. From our experience, we consider that in a future, the combination of ZigBee technology together with a service oriented architecture may be a versatile approach to AAL services offering, both from the technical and business points of view

An Orientation Service for Dependent People Based on an Open Service Architecture

This article describes a service architecture for ambient assisted liv ing and in particular an orientation navigation service in open places for persons with memory problems such as those patients suffering from Alzheimer’s in its early stages. The service has the following characteristics: one-day system autonomy; self-adjusting interfaces for simple interaction with patients, based on behavioural patterns to predict routes and destinations and to detect lost situations; easy browsing through simple spoken commands and use of photo graphs for reorientation, and independence of GISs (Geographic Information Systems) to reduce costs and increase accessibility. Initial testing results of the destination prediction algorithm are very positive. This system is integrated in a global e-health/e-care home service architecture platform (OSGi) that enables remote management of services and devices and seamless integration with other home service domains.Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia TSI2006-13390-C02-0

Convergence of residential gateway technology

A new OSI-based model is described that can be used for the classification of residential gateways. It is applied to analyze current gateway solutions and draw evolutionary paths for the medium to long term. From this it is concluded that particularly set-top boxes and broadband modems, as opposed to game consoles and PCs, have a strong potential to evolve toward gateways that deliver network services to the home on all OSI layers, although they probably will not converge. In our model, we have not found any compelling reasons for the residential gateway industry to support concurrent multiple broadband access network connections on a single residential gateway in the near future