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INTRODUCTION
We are living in the world of automation where most of the systems are getting automated, such as industrial automation, homes and other business sectors. Home automation systems are advancement to the mechanization processes wherein human efforts are needed with the machinery equipments to operate various loads in homes. It involves automatic controlling of home appliances using different technologies and controllers over desktops, laptops smart phones or tablets.
Home automation is the use and control of home appliances remotely or automatically. Early home automation began with labour saving machines like washing machines. Some home automation appliances are stand alone and do not communicate, such as a programmable light switch, while others are part of the internet of things and are networked for remote control and data transfer. Hardware devices can include sensors (like cameras and thermometers), controllers, actuators (to do things), and communication systems. Remote control can range from a simple remote control to a smart phone with Bluetooth, to a computer on the other side of the world connected by internet. Home automation systems are available which consist of a suite of products designed to work together. These typically connected through Wi-Fi or power line communication to a hub which is then accessed with a software application. Popular applications include thermostats, security systems, blinds, lighting, and door locks.[1] Popular suites of products include X10, Z-Wave, and Zigbee all of which are incompatible with each other. Home automation is the domestic application of building automation.
Home automation system makes the operations of various home appliances more convenient and saves energy. With the energy saving concept, home automation or building automation makes life very simple nowadays. It involves automatic controlling of all electrical or electronic devices in homes or even remotely through wireless communication. Centralized control of lighting equipments, air conditioning and heating, audio/video systems, security systems, kitchen appliances and all other equipments used in home systems is possible with this system.
This system is mainly implemented by sensors, controlling device s and actuators as shown in the figure. The sensors detects light, motion, temperature and other sensing elements, and then send that data to the main controlling devices. These sensors can be thermocouples or thermistors, photo detectors, level sensors, pressure sensors, current transformers, IR sensors, etc., which need an additional signal conditioning equipment to communicate with the main controller.
Controllers may be personal computers/laptops, touch pads, smart phones, etc., attached to the controlling device that receive the information from the sensors, and based on the program, control the actuators. This program can be modified based on the load operations. The programmable controller allows to connect various sensors and actuators through various input and output modules whether they are analog or digital.
Actuators are the final controlling devices like limit switches, relays, motors and other controlling mechanisms which finally control the home equipments. Communication plays an important role in this home automation system for remote access of these operations. This smart home system also provides continuous monitoring through video surveillance with cameras, scheduling, and energy saving operations. This is the best solution even for the elderly and the disabled persons to operate equipments.
The internet of things is the network of physical objects—devices, vehicles, buildings and other items—embedded with electronics, software, sensors, and network connectivity that enables these objects to collect and exchange data. That allows objects to be sensed and controlled remotely across existing network infrastructure, creating opportunities for more direct integration of the physical world into computer-based systems, and resulting in improved efficiency, accuracy and economic benefit; when that is augmented with sensors and actuators, the technology becomes an instance of the more general class of cyber-physical systems, which also encompasses technologies such as smart grids, smart homes, intelligent transportation and smart cities. Each thing is uniquely identifiable through its embedded computing system but is able to interoperate within the existing internet infrastructure.
1.1 Types of Home Automation System
In the present time, the technologically advanced world is getting more and more advance as new technology is penetrating deeper into our personal lives even in our homes as well. Home automation system is becoming very popular around the world. Home automation are used to control and monitor electronic security system lighting, climate, appliances, audio or video equipments, etc. Home automation is the residential extension of a building automation, and it is an automation of the home, housework or household activity. The benefits of automation are that it is secure and saves money, time, maintenance costs, and makes life easier. Home automation devices include X10, Insteon, UPB, Z-wave, Crestron, Lurton-RA, PLC, etc.
Home automation systems are categorized into the following three types depending upon the type of wired or wireless controllers:
Power Line Based Home Automation
Wired or Bus Cable Home Automation
Wireless Home Automation
Touch Screen Based Home Automation
1.1.1 Power Line Based Home Automation
This automation is inexpensive and doesn’t require additional cables to transfer the information, but uses existing power lines to transfer the data. However, this system involves a large complexity and necessitates additional converter circuits and devices. X10 and INSTEON are PLC technologies for home control using electric power wiring with in a home for home automation. Home plug in PLC technology is used to interconnect computers and peripherals and home entertainment devices that have an ETHERNET port. It allows devices to share videos and data without an inconvenience of running dedicated network cables.
PLC communication signals via main power lines are transmitted from a part of the home and received at the other side. Measurements are carried out between general divisions of a home such as kitchen, bedrooms, living room, hall, and bathroom, etc. Connectors are used to deliver power lines in the divisions of homes. So power is delivered via these connectors to every division. Power-line distances measured for signal attenuations given are between 6–30 m
Advantages:
Simple and Easy to access
Accessed from remote area
Low power consumption
Taking measures to reduce the electric bills
Portability
Disadvantages:
No end-to-end encryption of user data
There is no perfect system
Reduced concentration while driving
Roaming profiles accessible
Electromagnetic radiations
1.1.2 Wired Home Automation System
In this type of automation, all the home equipments are connected to a main controller (programmable logic controller) through a communication cable. The equipment is attached with actuators to communicate with the main controller. The entire operations are centralized by the computer that continuously communicates with the main controller.
Data cabling will include more than the cat.5 or cat.5e you'll use to use for your Ethernet network. This is to install your A/V, telephone, HVAC, and security systems, as well. The first stage in planning is to select the location of a central wiring hub location. This is where all the cables from all the different rooms come in and where all the external cabling (cable TV, phone, antenna, satellite, etc.) feeds into the house. Ideally this should be located next to your audio/video equipment since the speaker cable and video cable will feed to the other rooms from here.
Homeowners who want to have their audio/video equipment on display will usually locate this hub in or next to their home theater or music listening room. The equipment rack will usually house not only your home theater equipment but all the amplifiers, CD jukeboxes, DVD players and DSS receivers for the entire house. This can make for quite an impressive display and conversation piece, and a wide variety of video distribution system are available to deliver content to every room in the house easily and reliably.
Advantages:
Replacing humans in tasks performed in dangerous environments such as those with temperature extremes or radioactive and toxic atmospheres.
Making tasks that are beyond human capabilities easier.
Handling heavy or large loads, manipulating tiny objects or the requirement to make products very quickly or slowly are examples of this.
Production is often faster and labor costs less on a per product basis than the equivalent manual operations.
Economic improvement.
Disadvantages:
Technology limits.
Current technology is unable to automate all desired tasks.
Economic limits.
Certain tasks would cost more to automate than to perform manually.
1.1.3 Wireless Home Automation
This is the expansion and advancement of wired automation which uses wireless technologies like IR, Zigbee, WIFI, GSM, Bluetooth, etc., for achieving remote operation. As an example, the GSM based home automation provides the controlling of home equipments by an SMS to the GSM modem. The evolution in wireless technologies has opened the door to a new class of plant automation architecture that offers adopters a significant strategic advantage. Driven by substantial and measurable cost savings in engineering, installation, and logistics, as well as dramatic improvements in the frequency and reliability of field data collection, automation experts and IT professionals are presented with an opportunity to deliver a major, positive impact to the bottom line.
Advantages:
Installation savings: Installation of wirelessly connected assets is up to 10 times cheaper than the wired alterative and offers much faster start-ups and accelerated profits.
The reduced costs in wiring engineering, installation, and maintenance combined with the increased data gathering flexibility is the primary driver for wireless migration.
Better information: Replacing manual readings with automated measurement results in information that is more accurate, timely, and consistent.
Economy of scale.
Operational savings.
Safer operations.
Disadvantages:
High standard of maintenance required
Precise programming needed
New products require complete reprogramming
Certain process still need a skilled operator
Complex and expensive equipment to buy and install
1.1.4 Touch screen based home automation system
In this touch screen based home system, microcontroller is attached to the light loads to control them. At the controlling side, a touch screen allows any user to send the command signals in order to operate the loads. These signals are transferred to the microcontroller, and according to the program written, it sends the command signals to the encoder circuit. Encoder converts this data into binary format, and then transfers that to an RF transmitter; from there the data is transmitted to the receiver section. At the receiver side, the RF receiver receives the information sent by the transmitter section, and then decodes and transfers that to the microcontroller. Therefore, the microcontroller sends the command signals to an opto-isolator, which triggers the TRAICs. All the light loads are controlled by the TRIACs; as switches these are enabled only after triggering their gates
It is therefore possible to implement home automation using GSM as extension to the above project by simply adding a GSM modem to the receiver side of the microcontroller in place of an RF receiver. Therefore, the message send from a cell phone is received by this modem, which then sends that control signals to the microcontroller, which further controls the loads.