Jeedella

Integrated Wireless Technologies for Smart Homes Applications

Due to the rapid advances in wireless communication and information technologies it is now possible to embed various levels of smartness in the home. These smart homes are ones that can interact intelligently with their inhibitors to provide comfort and safe living. This interaction may range from simple control of ambient temperature to context-aware and mobile agent based services. An example of that is delivery of particular information content based on the smart home inhibitor location inside the home and the activities that he or she is engaged with. Wireless networks and sensors are seen to play an increasingly important role as key enablers in emerging pervasive computing technologies that are required for the realization of smart homes. The wide spread of wireless networks in our daily life is enabled by the communication standards such as WiFi, Bluetooth, Zigbee, RFID, and cellular technologies. A combination of these standards is envisaged to be used to construct the smart home. Effectively all wireless technologies that can support some form of remote data transfer, sensing and control are candidates for inclusion in the smart home portfolio. A top level architecture of a smart home is illustrated in Fig. 1 (Al-Qutayri & Jeedella, 2010). It includes a server/gateway/router that can be used as the central point of connectivity for devices within the home as well as allowing connectivity to the outside world. The setup also includes smart sensors as well as appliances that have either wired or wireless connectivity. Communicating with the smart home from the outside can be done using one or a combination of the following external networks such as phone lines, xDSL lines, cable TV, GSM and power line networks. Following this introduction, Section 2 reviews some of the major wireless communication technologies that can be used to realize a smart home. Section 3 describes briefly some of the smart sensors that can be used. Section 4 describes the major computing technologies, including ubiquitous and pervasive, context-aware, and agents computing which introduce smartness aspects to the home. Section 5 details some of the application that can be realized with smart homes. Section 6 describes the design and implementation of some smart home systems. In particular, the end-to-end realization of a secure system that enables monitoring and control of various devices with multiple levels of settings is described and the results 2

An integrated wireless indoor navigation system for visually impaired

This paper presents an integrated wireless system that helps a visually impaired person navigate within an indoor environment. The guidance process to help the person navigate uses a ZigBee wireless mesh network to localize the user and a compass to determine his/her orientation. The system uses a server to calculate an optimal path from the users present location to the target location or item to be reached. The system receives voice commands from the visually impaired person and generates audio responses to guide the person. The mobile unit of the system is compact and requires relatively low power. Overall the system has minimal intrusion level and the results of various testing scenarios showed it was successful. The results also showed that the accuracy level depends on the available ZigBee modules within the mesh network and the particular zone.

Blind assistant navigation system

This paper presents the architecture as well as the implementation of a system that helps blind person navigate independently within an enclosed environment such as the home. The system uses a wireless mesh network to provide the first level localization. It also incorporates additional components to provide more refined location and orientation information. Optimal path planning is done by a server that communicates wirelessly with the portable mobile unit that can be pushed by the blind person. The blind person issues commands and receives direction responses using audio signals.

Watermarking mobile phone colour images with Reed Solomon error correction code

This paper proposes a new watermarking scheme for embedding phone numbers into colour images captured by a mobile phone camera. Firstly, the phone number digits are transformed into binary format and the checksum is added as extra bits. Then the generated binary vector is encoded using Reed Solomon error correction code and the generated sequence is transformed into binary matrix. This generated binary matrix, which is the watermark, is inserted in one of the DCT coefficients of the 8×8 block of the cover colour image. The distortion caused by the watermarking is assessed by using the PSNR and SSIM. The robustness of the scheme is assessed by using “Stirmark” software package. The new algorithm offered better performance to the case without using error correction codes and survived JPEG compression and different 3×3 two dimensional filtering.

Second-order TDTL with initialization process

This paper proposes an improved time delay digital tanlock loop (TDTL) system in which a feedforward loop is used to initialize the loop filter memory so as to enhance the acquisition speed of the system. The feedforward loop is used to estimate the value of the steady-state frequency of the input signal which is subsequently loaded into the memory of the loop filter. The system was simulated and tested using Simulink/Matalb using frequency step and FSK modulation. Further, the system was implemented using an FPGA and testing results indicate an ample improvement in the acquisition speed over the original TDTL system.

Smart homes: technologies, applications and challenges

Smart homes are intelligent environments that interact with their occupants in ways that improve their lives. This paper presents the ubiquitous pervasive technologies that will need to be integrated to realise the future vision of smart homes that have the intelligence to anticipate, predict and take decisions in a virtually autonomous manner. It also presents some of the major application areas that will benefit from the realisation of smart homes. It then discusses some of the challenges that need to be overcome in order for smart homes to become a reality and find acceptance from people across all sectors of the society.

Solar powered autonomous explorer architecture

This paper presents the architecture of a solar powered autonomous explorer. The autonomous explorer employs smart power management system to harvest its energy from the solar energy and monitors its usage in the system. Also it monitors its surrounding environment and communicates with a control base station. The explorer incorporates appropriate sensors to monitor various environmental conditions. The complete system was fully implemented as a prototype and its operation modes were verified. The system architecture is highly flexible and scalable one which enables expansion whenever the need arises.

Integrated secure wireless ordering and transaction processing system architecture

This paper presents the architecture of an integrated secure wireless ordering and transaction processing system. Wireless communication between the various system components is primarily done using WiFi technology. The ordering and subsequent transaction processing are done at the user end using a WiFi enabled PDA that communicates with a local server which in turn sends requests and receives confirmations from the various departments involved in processing the order. The system incorporates security features at all levels of the architecture in order to prevent unauthorized access, assign privileges to users, and maintain the integrity of the information being exchanged. The complete system was fully implemented as a prototype and its operation verified. The system architecture is highly flexible and a scalable one which enables expansion whenever the need arises.

Design of transient second-order IIR filters with optimum dynamic frequency responses

This paper presents a new design method for clutter IIR filters that maximize the 3 dB bandwidth of the dynamic frequency response. The designed filters offer better dynamic frequency responses for a given number of samples when compared to zero and projection initialization. Fine-tuning the positions of the poles to maximize the 3 dB bandwidth of the dynamic frequency response for a given number of samples achieves the improvement. Second-order filters were successfully designed for processing different numbers of samples and their performances were studied by considering their dynamic frequency responses.