Evaluating the impact of malicious spoofing attacks on Bluetooth low energy based occupancy detection systems

Occupancy detection of a building has a wide range of applications. Areas such as emergency management, home automation and building energy management can benefit from the knowledge of occupants' locations to provide better results and improve their efficiency. Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons installed inside a building are able to provide information on an occupant's location. Since, however, their operation is based on broadcasting advertisements, they are vulnerable to network security breaches. In this work, we evaluate the effect of two types of spoofing attacks on a BLE based occupancy detection system. The system is composed of BLE beacons installed inside the building, a mobile application installed on occupants’ mobile phones and a remote control server. Occupancy detection is performed by a classifier installed on the remote server. We use our real-world experimental results to evaluate the impact of these attacks on the system's operation, particularly in terms of the accuracy with which it can provide location information

Distribution Automation Laboratory Assignments for Students in Tampere University of Technology

Distribution automation is a fundamental part of distribution network operation. In Finland, the goal is to increase the number of automated functions in a distribution network, because of the constantly tightening requirements for decreasing the duration of outages. For students, who study power engineering, it is beneficial to understand the possibilities of distribution automation. In Tampere University of Technology, the course Distribution Automation ensures the understanding of the fundamentals of distribution automation and network operation for students. The course includes lecture subjects, written exercises and laboratory assignments. The main objective of this thesis is to improve and update laboratory environments of distribution automation for the course Distribution Automation. The laboratory environments should help students understand distribution network protection, the role of DMS and SCADA system, and smart metering. This thesis examines previous laboratory implementations on the course and distribution automation in general. The laboratory environments and students’ feedback from previous laboratory implementations are presented in this thesis. The chapter on distribution automation displays information about distribution network protection, SCADA and DMS systems, AMI system and protocols. The distribution network protection section presents basic needs and regulations for distribution network protection. SCADA and DMS section introduces functionalities of these systems whereas smart metering section describes AMI system naming and structure. Protocols and standards section describes IEC 104, IEC 61850, OPC, DLMS/COSEM, object oriented information models and OSI model communication structures. As a result of this thesis, implementations from two different laboratory environments are introduced. The first laboratory implementation includes distribution network protection and IEDs. The second laboratory implementation includes a smart meter, DMS and SCADA systems, and remote communication between the control center, the substation and the smart meter

Remote-Controlled Home Automation Systems with Different Network Technologies

This paper describes an investigation into the potential for remote controlled operation of home automation systems. It considers problems with their implementation, discusses possible solutions through various network technologies and indicates how to optimize the use of such systems. The home is an eternal, heterogeneous, distributed computing environment, which certainly requires a careful study before developing any suitable Home Automation System (HAS) that will accomplish its requirements. Nevertheless the latest attempts at introducing Home Automation Systems in actual homes for all kinds of users are starting to be successful thanks to the continuous standardization process that is lowering the prices and making devices more useful and easier to use for the end user. Even so several important issues are always to be handled strictly before developing and installing a Home Automation System; factors like security, reliability, usefulness, robustness and price are critical to determine if the final product will accomplish the expected requirements

Assessment of ICT-based Architectures for the integration of EVs in smart grids

The involvement of Information and Communication Technology (ICTs) systems in the evolution of distribution networks towards smart grid approaches is critical. The use of ICTs in the electrical system is already a fact, mainly in transmission but also at energy distribution level. It is expected that this dependency will increase in the future and, among other functionalities, it will help integrate distributed energy resources (DER), including electric vehicles (EVs), into network operation. Both remote communications and automated actions will be a characteristic of smart grids design, permitting higher levels of control and visibility in distribution networks. In general, smart grid features and processes in the fields of distribution automation, advanced metering, DER integration and customer empowering will condition the availability of services. DER system involvement in network operation processes is one of the main tools for flexibility enhancement in smart grids and the principal scope of this study. The services that could most suitably be provided by EVs to the network have been analysed through use case descriptions, involving: frequency regulation, load balancing, voltage regulation/reactive power provision, peak shaving, load profile flattening and renewable energy system (RES) integration. As result of the study, general ICT system requirements, including a network architecture, are proposed for the provision of advanced network services by EVs and other demand resources in smart grid environments.EC FP

Web-Enabled Vision Guided Robotic Tracking Within the Framework of E-Manufacturing

The current trends in industry include an integration of information and knowledge base network with a manufacturing system, which coined a new term, E-Manufacturing. From the perspective of E-Manufacturing, any production equipment and its control functions do not exist alone, but become a part of the holistic operation system with distant monitoring, remote quality control and fault diagnostic capabilities. The key to this new paradigm is the accessibility to a remotely located system and having the means of responding to a changing environment, which is better suited for today’s rapidly changing environment. In this context, this paper presents an innovative method in part tracking using the Ethernet SmartImage Sensor and the web-controllable SCARA robot. Remote controlling of an automation process using Internet can suffer from time lag, if the network is congested with heavy data traffic, which maybe the greatest hurdle for using Internet for real time control. The approach discussed in this paper overcomes the time lag for part tracking and mathematically calculates the product locations on the conveyor at various instances and efficiently guide the robot to the product. The accuracy of the proposed scheme has been verified, which vindicates the industrial applicability of the setup. The web-enabled robotic operations present many benefits, such as ubiquitous access, remote control, programming, monitoring capabilities, and integration of production equipment into information networks for improved efficiency and quality

Analysis and evaluation of the establishment and maintenance of paths in a MANET used for industrial process monitoring

The use of wireless networks is having an ever greater impact on systems controlling automation, industrial manufacturing, distributed control and supervision. Wireless technologies in particular have penetrated quickly the area of control of public utilities networks, and typical examples of this are remote control and supervision of large water, gas or electricity distribution networks. These types of networks are usually formed of a central station and different remote stations, and remote clients who are able to remotely monitor or even control the working of the system. To improve the use of the system, the remote stations must have the capacity to exchange information between each other and with the central station. The spontaneous generation of wireless networks in remote stations to exchange information between workers is a possible solution. Taking into account the characteristics of this type of monitoring system, the paper has proposed a scenario (number of nodes, area size, mobility) and has modeled, using stochastic activity networks (SAN), the operation of an ad hoc network that uses a reactive routing protocol to determine if the network is able to offer the typical services of these facilities (images or video streaming and alerts).This work was supported by the MCyT (Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation) under the projects TIN2010-21378-C02-02, whose are partially funded by FEDER. The first author has been further supported by the ITI (Instituto Tecnologico de Informatica).Albero Albero, T.; Sempere Paya, VM.; Mataix Oltra, J. (2013). Analysis and evaluation of the establishment and maintenance of paths in a MANET used for industrial process monitoring. Simulation Modelling Practice and Theory. 37:79-98. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.simpat.2013.05.009S79983

Development Needs in Automatic Fault Location, Isolation and Supply Restoration of MicroSCADA Pro DMS600

Tightened reliability requirements for the electricity distribution are causing distribution system operators to improve the quality of supply by renovating the network. To achieve a weather-proof distribution network by the end of year 2028, major investments must be made by means of replacing overhead lines with cables and increasing the level of automation in the network. Since the renovation process is rather slow and expensive, DSOs must obtain cost savings in distribution network operation by utilizing existing network automation more efficiently. One of the main solutions is to automatize the fault management and thereby reduce outage duration experienced by the customer. Traditional fault management comprises the co-operation of the network control center and field crews working along the distribution network. An increasing amount of network automation, such as remote-controlled disconnectors, sectionalizing reclosers and fault detectors, is improving the response time of medium network faults when the operator can isolate the fault remotely from the control center. However, multiple simultaneous faults in major electricity disruption can cause personnel of the control center to be overburdened with fault handling and dispatching field crews. Therefore, automatic Fault Location, Isolation, and supply Restoration (FLIR) functionality is considered as a beneficial tool to assist the network operator. While the FLIR performs the first steps of fault management, operator is freed to conduct the operation of field crews repairing failures. MicroSCADA Pro is a product family for electricity distribution control and supervisory by ABB. The current version of MicroSCADA Pro DMS600 4.5 already includes functionality for automatic fault isolation and supply restoration, but it is not used by any DSOs due to functional imperfections. The current fault detection, isolation and supply restoration (FDIR) functionality requires an exact fault location inferred by fault current measurements or fault indicator operations and therefore, it can rarely operate due to lack of initial data. To achieve an efficient operation, a trial switching sequence must be introduced as part of the existing functionality. The method of trial switching is normally used by the operator when fault cannot be located according to measurements and indications. A basic principle of the trial switchings is to divide faulty feeder into minor sections and close the substation circuit breaker against the suspected fault. This is continued until the circuit breaker trips and the fault has been located and isolated into a single disconnector zone. The research for this thesis was carried out by interviews for Finnish DSOs to gather requirements and restrictions for the FLIR functionality. The main objective of the interview process was to familiarize the fault management process of a network control center operator, so as human-like operation of the FLIR could be obtained. Interviews gathered the most important development needs and possible restrictions to ensure the most fluent operation between automation and the network control center operators. For example, automation may not be wanted to restore supply from adjacent feeders during major disturbance, since multiple fault can occur and cause also backup feeder to trip and increase the faulty area. Automatic functionality should not also disturb the operation of network control center, and thus separate fault handling areas should be determined for FLIR to operate

Intelligent monitoring of the health and performance of distribution automation

With a move to 'smarter' distribution networks through an increase in distribution automation and active network management, the volume of monitoring data available to engineers also increases. It can be onerous to interpret such data to produce meaningful information about the health and performance of automation and control equipment. Moreover, indicators of incipient failure may have to be tracked over several hours or days. This paper discusses some of the data analysis challenges inherent in assessing the health and performance of distribution automation based on available monitoring data. A rule-based expert system approach is proposed to provide decision support for engineers regarding the condition of these components. Implementation of such a system using a complex event processing system shell, to remove the manual task of tracking alarms over a number of days, is discussed