CHAPTER TWO

2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Historical Background

Smart Home technology i.e. the technology of remotely controlling home appliances has been

around since the 1980s and has been frequently improved to enhance comfort, security and

energy-conservation. For instance, all windows and doors can be locked from a central

location in the home, a telephone call to the house can turn on the washing machine,

lightings, freezers, etc. Lights can be programmed to turn on and off when someone enters

and leaves a room, exterior sensors can be programmed to increase or reduce the intensity of

lights in accordance with the amount of light entering the home, home comfort systems

(heating, air-conditioning, ventilation) can be set to automatically change in response to the

time of day or to external temperatures, lightning systems can be controlled by sound e.g.

voice identification or clapping or hands etc.

Exterior video or motion detectors can alert a home owner to unusual activity through sensors

that evaluate foot-pressure changes, breakage of glasses, movement, and contact with

windows and door and sends alert to the owner or appropriate authorities. Stove control units

can detect high temperatures and then automatically shut off ovens and burners. The

possibilities in home automation are endless as developers continue to push barriers and

redefine the concept of a smart home.

It is important to point out that all the modern designs of home automation systems utilize

various wireless technologies (Bluetooth, infrared, WLAN, IoT, Zigbee, SMS and DTMF) for

control of appliances. However, each of this wireless technologies has its own peculiar
challenges and limitations. This chapter will take a look at previous projects that were

focused on home automation, reviewing their strengths, limitations and recommendations.

2.2 Home Automation using ZigBee Technology:

ZigBee is an 802 wireless communication standard built by the IEEE. Much like Z-Wave, its

seen significant growth in the past few years, and can be found in a relatively large number of

devices. It has low power consumption requirement, and mostly uses a mesh network

structure to offer excellent range and relatively speedy communication between devices.

However, Zigbee devices usually have interoperability issues as they do not easily

communicate with devices made by other manufacturers.

S. Kanagmalliga designed and implemented a security control and monitoring system based

on Zigbee technology. The system comprises of Zigbee modules and Zigbee end devices,

MCU, GSM, Sensors and a smartphone. Three sensors (PIR, Vibration and magnetic door

sensors) are used to monitor the home remotely. The sensors are equipped with Zigbee nodes

and communicate wirelessly with the Zigbee coordinator which is in turn connected to the

microcontroller.

The electrical doors and gas system are controlled via a switching circuit which is also

equipped with a Zigbee node. When intrusion is detected, the home owner is notified via

SMS and can send a command to shut all doors and activate the gas system. This system has

a basic advantage over Bluetooth technology based systems in that it has a far better range

and generally Zigbee modules consume less power compared to Bluetooth modules.

2.3 Home Automation using GSM (SMS) Technology:

The Short Message Service (SMS) allows text messages to be sent and received to and from

mobile telephones. The text can comprise words or numbers or an alphanumeric combination.

SMS was the most widely used data application, with an estimated 3.5 billion active users, or

about 80% of all mobile phone subscribers at the end of 2010 [9]. The ease of use and

popularity of this communication system explains why it is widely deployed in smart home

development.

The work presented the design of a basic smart home system that is controlled via text

messaging over a given GSM network. The design was targeted at providing a simple and

easy to control smart home system that is very affordable. The basic components used

include; a PIC microcontroller, a stationed mobile device, relays, light bulbs and a mobile

unit. The mobile unit (user) sends control commands to the mobile device stationed at the

control center .The microcontroller then extracts this commands from the mobile device,

processes the commands and sends control signals to the relay drives which in turn drives the

relays thereby switching the connected devices ON/OFF. The user then gets a feedback

message showing the commands executed and current state of devices. The system has the

advantage of simplicity and ease of implementation but the drawbacks are that the system is

not robust and one might encounter much difficulty in integrating new devices into the

system. Also, frequent use of system indicates higher cost which is associated with sending

control messages.

Ajayi et al Designed a GSM based microcontroller control system used to detect an intruder

using IR diffused line sensors and shock sensors as well as lock systems to automatically lock

up all the doors once an intruder is detected.

Operation: The shock sensors are placed on the doors and windows and are used to detect any

forceful entries. Similarly the IR sensors are used to detect movements around particular
areas. Control signals are sent to the connected MCU when an intruder is detected. The MCU

sends a situation message to the user and displays phone numbers of the affected rooms on

the LCD. It also automatically locks down all doors which have mechanical locks that have

been integrated into the system. The advantage SMS holds over other listed wireless

technologies is that it can remotely send commands to the central system i.e. it is not limited

by range

A similar design was presented in [9] in which the design implements a system with

automatic door opening and closing, temperature monitoring, gas detection and light control

using RFID, Zigbee and GSM. The project also utilizes an Opto-coupler to automatically

control lighting by detecting presence/absence of people in the house. The RFID tags and tag

reader is used to automatically control the door locks after verifying the card. The sensors

communicate to the central station via a slave-master Zigbee based structure. Commands are

received and notifications are sent via the GSM module. However, a major drawback is the

cumulative cost for text messages that accrues through consistent use of system irrespective

of whether the user is at close range to the appliances or at a remote location,

2.4 Home Automation using DTMF signaling Technology:

Dual-tone multi-frequency signaling (DTMF) is an in-band telecommunication signaling

system using the voice-frequency band over telephone lines between telephone equipment

and other communications devices and switching centers. DTMF is short for Dual Tone Multi

Frequency. It is a generic communication term for touch tone (a Registered Trademark of

AT&T). The tones produced when dialing on the keypad of the phone could be used to

represent the digits, and a separate tone is used for each digit. Pressing any key generate

unique tone which consists of two different frequencies one each of higher and lower

frequency range. The resultant tone is a convolution of two frequencies .

 Joseph implemented a home automation system using DTMF signaling. The design was

targeted at making affordable and easy to operate smart home systems. It consisted of a

mobile unit, a GSM module, a microcontroller and a relay driver. The user issues command

via keypad tones from his mobile phone while placing a call from his mobile to the SIM in

the GSM module. The Microcontroller using pre-programmed conditions is able to extract

and decode this commands by differentiating the frequency of each keypad tone. It then uses

the command received to send appropriate control signals to the relay drivers which in turn

performs required action on the connected appliances. However, use of DTMF signaling for

home automation is not commonplace as the technology is not as efficient or user friendly as

the alternatives and also the cumulative cost for voice messages is considerably high. The

system that was designed also did not have a feedback mechanism which makes control from

remote location pointless as the owner cannot ascertain whether the instruction was carried

out or not.

2.5 Home Automation Using Internet Based Application

The internet can simply be described as communication occurring over multiple networks

without any physical connection medium. The internet became commonplace in the twentieth

century and the basic advantage it holds over all other forms of wireless communication is

that it is unlimited by distance or location and it is universal.

The idea of having a smart home system based on the interconnectivity of networks has

continually been explored by developers and researchers in recent times. A good example of

an internet based automated system was proposed in which a smart home developed on an

Arduino platform was controlled and monitored via Email over the internet. The design is

central around the microcontroller unit which is connected to various sensors and relays that

drive the appliances. Also the control unit is connected to a PC which is internet enabled.
Control commands are sent to the Gmail account of the said PC, the microcontroller then

extracts this commands and executes them accordingly. A feedback message stating the

current status of the appliances and sensors are then sent back to the user Gmail account. This

design is quite different from contemporary internet smart homes in that you do not need to

purchase an exclusive domain for your server as the system utilizes the server already

provided by the Gmail interface. However, the continual running cost of controlling the

devices over the internet and the lack of control friendliness of the system makes it quite

unattractive.

2.6 Implementing Smart Home with Two or more Technologies

The above reviews shows the various advantages and challenges of employing various

individual wireless technologies in the implementation of a smart home system. Each of the

projects reviewed employed a single technology in their design and are limited by the

constraints associated with the wireless technology they employed. The most important

factors that should influence the design of a smart home system include the scalability of the

system, security, ease of integrating new appliances and devices into the existing design, ease

of use or a user friendly control interface and cost effectiveness of the overall system. In most

recent designs, developers are faced with a tradeoff between most of this factors as the

pursuance of one of this factors may limit the implementation of another. To implement such

a system that integrates all this factors, developers have proposed designs that utilize two or

more of the available wireless technologies. The work in proposed an automated irrigation

system that utilizes both GSM and Bluetooth communication and control system. The system

consists of various sensors (temperature, water level detectors etc.), a microcontroller, various

appliances, a GSM and a Bluetooth module. The Bluetooth module is used to interact and

control the farm equipment when in close range while the GSM module is employed when
control is to be done from a remote location. This arrangement helps to reduce cost of control

associated with continuous use of GSM module when in close range and at same time the

limited range of Bluetooth is overcome as control can be implemented with the GSM module

at remote locations. The major drawback of this system is the control interface when using

GSM which involves sending text commands that are quite long and difficult to recall which

makes it quite unfriendly to the user.

To minimize the various drawbacks evident in all the aforementioned systems, the system

proposed here implements a number of features and measures to achieve an ideal smart

home. Firstly, the system utilizes both GSM and Bluetooth wireless technologies so as to

have a limitless range and also to minimize cost associated with using GSM.

Secondly, control is made possible via an android based application which allows the user to

turn ON/OFF appliances by merely pushing a control button on the application. Also,

monitoring can be done using the application as the state and values of all sensors are

continually displayed on the application. In addition, control is also possible using the

conventional text messaging method thus allowing users who do not own an android phone to

also be able to use the given system.

Thirdly, a more effective feedback system is presented in the system developed. This is so

because the connections are made such that a positive feedback indicating that the appliance

has been turned on/off is only sent when current actually flows from the relays to the load

thereby greatly improving the integrity and reliability of the system. This has always been a

major drawback of most smart home systems.

Lastly, one major challenge of the feedback system of most smart home designs is that of

supply of electricity. Such system would be considered ineffective in a situation where a user

is frantically trying to control appliances from a remote location without knowing that there is
power failure at his home. Hence, the system designed here provides a backup power supply

to the control units so that the system can send feedback to the user at any time indicating the

current power situation at control center.