HOME AUTOMATION & CONTROL

HOME AUTOMATION & CONTROL John Errington

WHY HOME AUTOMATION? • Your security system knows all about your occupancy of the house. With a little more development it can build an intelligent ‘expert system’ to predict your usage, and for example turn the alarm on if you forget. • Your central heating programmer knows the standards of comfort you expect – but doesn’t know which rooms are in use. • By linking just these two you could achieve a reduction in fuel costs and a better match to your requirements.

APPLICATIONS The applications are limited only by your imagination: • Turning lights down / off at night. • Operating outside lights • Turning lights or radio on / off when someone approaches the house, simulating occupancy • Operating television, hot water heater, kettle, toaster etc. ready for your use. • Optimizing use of low cost electricity (economy 7) • Working with intelligent electrical white goods e.g. washing machine, fridge, microwave etc.

WHAT IS HOME AUTOMATION? Home automation deals with providing a network in the house which links • computers & peripheral equipment, • smart chip bearing household appliances (white goods) e.g. dish washers, washing machines, microwaves etc., and • sub-systems like Heating, Ventilation, Air-conditioning (HVAC), and security systems.

Showing some applications of X-10 and European Home System (EHS) for home automation

ADVANTAGES OF HOME AUTOMATION • Flexibility & Convenience • Security • Cost Saving • Security • Remote Control

EXAMPLE OF APPLICATIONS FOR HOME AUTOMATION SYSTEM

HISTORY & EARLY DEVELOPMENTS • Earliest home control systems were proposed by Hitachi & Matsushita in 1978. • First home automation blue prints and demonstrations held by Japanese Electrical Appliance manufacturers like Sanyo, Sony, Toshiba etc. • Honeywell’s first demonstration house started in 1978. • American X 10 system appeared in 1979. • Two rival programs CEBus and Smart House started in the early 1980’s in the US. • GE reported their multimedia home bus signaling protocol Homenet in 1983. • Total Home system launched in 1992. • GIS, Home Automation Ltd. MK Electric took the initiative in Europe.

THE NEED FOR PROTOCOLS AND STANDARDISATION • A definite set of rules were needed for products to communicate with each other and some sort of control unit was needed to control these various products. • Resolving Contention • Integrating various transmission media. • System Architecture – two alternatives • Centralized Control • Distributed Control

HOME AUTOMATION AROUND THE WORLD

TYPES OF HOME AUTOMATION SYSTEMS • PC-based system: Requires a PC to be running at all times. • Dedicated PC • Shared PC • Standalone system: Runs without a PC, although may use a PC for programming • Hybrid system: Runs without a PC, but uses PC to add more functions.

STANDARDS • BatiBUS Club International (BCI) • Bluetooth • CEBus (Consumer Electronic Bus) • EIA-776 • EIB (European Installation Bus) • EHS (European Home System) • ETI (Extend the Internet Alliance) • HAVI (Home Audio Visual Interoperability) • HBS (Home Bus System) • HES (Home Electronic System) • Home API • Home Plug & Play

STANDARDS - CONTINUED • Home Plug Alliance • Home PNA (Home Phoneline and network Alliance) • Home RF (Home Radia Frequency working Group) • JINI (The Jini Community) • LonMark Interoperability Association • OSGI (Open Service Gateway Initiative) • Wireless Ethernet Compatibility Alliance • Upnp (Universal Plug and Play) • VESA (Video Electronics Standards Assoc.) • PROPRIETARY SPECIFICATIONS • HomeConnex-Peracom Networks , No New Wires- Intellon Corp, Lonworks-Echelon Corp., Sharewave-Sharewave Inc. , X-10-X10 Inc.

X-10: THE FATHER OF POWERLINE HOME AUTOMATION PROTOCOLS • X-10 is a communications protocol for remote control of electrical devices. Consists of X-10 transmitters and receivers which communicate over the existing standard household wiring. • X-10 is a trademark of X-10 USA and of X-10 Home Controls Incorporated (Canada). • X-10 PLC technology was initially developed between 1976 and 1978 by engineers at Pico Electronics Ltd. in Scotland. A merger with BSR International established X-10 Ltd. in 1978.

X-10 SPECIFICATIONS • Transmitters and receivers plug into standard electrical outlets or are hardwired into electrical boxes. • They have three main functions(turn on, turn off and dim) • Simplest Transmitter: A small control box with buttons to select the unit to be controlled and to select the control command to be sent. • Programmable units having on board timers to select times at which control signals are sent. Programming is done with on board buttons or through PC. • Special purpose X10 transmitters respond to motion, light or DTMF (telephone) tones • Simplest Receiver: A small module plugged into an electrical outlet provides controlled power to the controlled device. It has two dials to set the unit ID code on it. • A relay inside switches on and off in response to X-10 commands directed to it. A lamp module has a triac instead of a relay.

Examples of X-10 devices

X-10: LIMITING RANGE OF TRANSMISSION • The next slide shows how X10 uses bursts of 120kHz signal superimposed onto the house mains supply, shown as one of the three supply phases. • This means interference can only occur with one in three neighbouring houses. • X10 also uses a house code (A – P) that can be adjusted to be different to the remaining neighbours.

X-10: Signals are sent at the zero crossing for each phase of the electricity supply ensuring successful communication

X-10 SPECIFICATIONS CONTINUED • X-10 specifies a total of 256 different addresses. • Each transmitter is selectable by a unique house code out of a total of 16 house codes (A-P). • Each transmitter can further handle a total of 16 receiving units corresponding to 16 different unit codes (1-16)

X-10: INTERFACE WITH A COMPUTER • The PC can control the X-10 modules via the CP290 Home Control Interface. • Other X10 modules to interface computers directly to the power line are • PL513 (send only) • W523 (send & receive) and • PLIX (Power Line interface to X-10)

X-10 TRANSMISSION DETAILS • Each ONE bit in a legitimate X 10 transmission is a 1 millisecond(ms) pulse code modulated burst of 120KHz on the AC line and each ZERO is the absence of such a burst. The burst is sent three times for each bit once at each AC zero crossing( accounting for zero crossing in 3-phase). • Each bit is sent both true and complemented and each code sequence is sent twice to overcome the noise over the line. Bit sequence for a typical X10 transmission: 1 1 1 0 H8 /H8 H4 /H4 H2 /H2 H1 /H1 D8 /D8 D4 /D4 D2 /D2 D1 /D1 F /F (start) (House code) (Unit/Function code)

Leader 1110 House code (A – P) D = 0011 Unit code (1 – 16) 13 = 1100 Function (1 on or 0 off)on = 1 House and unit codes A 1 0000 I 9 1000 B 2 0001 J 10 1001 C 3 0010 K 11 1010 D 4 0011 L 12 1011 E 5 0100 M 13 1100 F 6 0101 N 14 1101 G 7 0110 O 15 1110 H 8 0111 P 16 1111 X-10: Example of transmitted signal Transmitted signal: 1110 01011010 10100101 10

CEBus COMMUNICATIONS PROTOCOL • A United States standard developed by the Electronics Industry Association (EIA). • Resulted from the standardization of infrared signaling used for remote control of appliances to avoid incompatible or interfering formats. • CEBus (Consumer Electronic Bus) became an interim standard in 1992 and voting to make it a national standard commenced in 1995. • Huge participation and interest in the CEBus protocol. Committee meetings were attended by more than 400 companies.

FEATURES OF CEBus WHICH ALLOW FLEXIBILITY AND COST CONTROL. • Provide home automation for retrofit into existing houses. • Encourages development of low cost interface units embedded in appliances for operation on CEBus media • Accommodate a variety of data transmission media. Most aspects of device communications do not vary by medium. • Supports the distribution of wide band audio and video services in a variety of analog and digital formats. • Use of a distributed communications strategy for CEBus so no central controller is required for communications among appliances. • Permit Plug and Play. • Prioritize device access.

NETWORK ARCHITECTURE IN THE CEBus PROTOCOL • The CEBus standard accommodates the following transmission media: • Electric power line • Twisted-pair wires • Coaxial cable • Infrared signaling • Radio frequency signaling • Fiber optics • Audio-video bus

ADVANTAGES OF CEBus • Home automation can be installed without additional wiring • Power line is used for data exchange and infrared or radio frequency used for remote control of devices.

AEI EasyLife Home Control Pack • Simple to install. Just plug in the adaptors and operate from the remote control • Additionally you can control the adaptors from your PC • Simple to program - Just insert the CD and follow the simple instructions • Simple to control - just point and click on the icons with your mouse • Transmits code through walls and ceilings • Expandable using up to 60 Remote Automation adaptors including mains adaptors, bayonet fittings and wire in modules

CONTROL CHANNEL SPECIFICATIONS • All media carry the CEBus control channel and data transmission rate is common at 8000 bits per second. • They can also carry data channels with high bandwidths. • CEBus specifies a dual coaxial system. • The format for CEBus control messages is independent of the communications medium used.

CEBus Devices and Topology • Supports flexible topology • Offers broadcasting facility • Uses Distributed Control.

CEBus network showing three communication media interconnected by routers.

Block diagram of CEBus installation in home

HOME ELECTRONIC SYSTEM (HES) • Standard under development by a formal working Group sanctioned by the ISO and the IEC(International Electrotechnical Commission) of Geneva, Switzerland. • GOAL To specify hardware and software so a manufacturer might offer one version of a product that could operate on a variety of home automation networks. • Following components specified to accomplish the above goal • Universal Interface • Command Language • HomeGate

HES APPLICATION MODELS AND FUNCTIONAL SAFETY • For devices to be interoperable choice of observability and controllability must be consistent among various devices. • An application model describes the engineering aspects of a device that can be read, written, or executed via a home automation network. • All safety critical messages sent over the network must be confirmed. • IEC defines functional safety as the ability of a home control system to carry out the actions necessary to achieve and maintain an appropriate level of safety both under normal conditions and in case of a fault or hazard.

HES SYSTEM COMPONENTS • UNIVERSAL INTERFACE To achieve the goal of compatibility of any device with any other network the appliance has a universal interface that includes a standard data plug.

HES COMPONENTS CONTD. • HES Application Language • The HES language must accommodate a superset of commands for the likely networks. It may not optimize operation on any one home automation system but it lowers costs when selling into a diverse market. • Homegate • The function of a gateway is primarily to translate between a wide area network (WAN) protocol and a local area network (LAN)

HOME PLUG & PLAY (HPnP) • Seamless integration and interoperation of devices irrespective of the physical protocol. • Use of CAL • HPnP and protocols like CEBus provide a consumer with the convenience of buying a device and just plugging it in. The device just announces itself on the network and no other or minimal further programming is needed to make it work. • Advantages: • Allows a consumer to control his home from home, work or from on the road. Coupled with CEBus protocol provides a connectivity unparalleled by any other methodology. • Effort is being made to integrate CAL and IP.

SWAP: HomeRF Working Group • The HRFWG was formed to provide the foundation for a broad range of interoperable consumer devices by establishing an open industry specification for wireless digital communication between PCs and consumer electronic devices anywhere in and around the home. • For this they developed a protocol called the SWAP (Shared Wireless Access Protocol) • This protocol gives the standard interoperability between many different consumer electronics devices as well as the flexibility and mobility of a wireless solution. • Since its inception in March 1998 the membership now exceeds 90 companies.

SHARED WIRELESS ACCESS PROTOCOL • Allows PCs, peripherals, phones, and consumer electronics to communicate with one another without having to interconnect them with wires. • SWAP operates in 2.4 GHz ISM band. Protocol architecture closely resembles the IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN standards in the physical layer. • In the MAC layer it adds a subset of DECT standards to provide voice services. As a result it can support both data and voice services.

BENEFITS OF SWAP • Allows shared access of Internet connections from anywhere in the house. • Automatic intelligent routing of incoming telephone calls to one or more cordless handsets, FAX machines or voice mailboxes of individual family members. • Cordless handset access to an integrated message system to review stored voice mail, FAXes and e-mail. • Personal intelligent agents running on the PC for each family member, accessed by speaking into cordless handsets. • Wireless LANs allowing users to share files and peripherals between one or more PCs. • Spontaneous control of home security systems, heating and air conditioning systems from anywhere around the home.

TECHNICAL SUMMARY OF THE SWAP SPEC • HomeRF SWAP system is designed to carry both voice and data traffic and to interoperate with PSTN • Supports both TDMA and CSMA/CA

SWAP SYSTEM PARAMETERS • Frequency hopping network - 50 hops per second • Frequency range - 2400 MHz ISM band • Transmission power - 100mW • Data Rate – 1 to 2 Mbps depending on type of modulation • Range - covers typical home and yard • Supported Stations – Up to 127 devices per network • Voice Connections – Up to 6 full duplex conversations • Data compression, Data security and 48 bit network ID

SWAP NETWORK TOPOLOGY • SWAP system can operate either as an ad-hoc network or as a managed network. • The network can accommodate a maximum of 127 nodes. These nodes can be a mixture of 4 basic types • Connection Point • Voice terminal • Data node • Voice and Data node.

OTHER STANDARDS • BatiBus • A de facto European standard. • BatiBUS is a single bus enabling intercommunications between all the modules (CPUs, sensors and actuators) in building control systems such as heating, air conditioning, lighting and closure functions. Medium is usually a twisted pair. • User friendly protocol based on CSMA/CA • HomePlug • Another Powerline Alliance which uses Powerline as a communication medium.

Resources • www.x-10europe.com/ supplier of X-10 modules • www.x-10.co.uk/ • www.kevinboone.com/home-automation.html • www.easylife.co.uk/

HOME AUTOMATION & CONTROL