One of the more essential tasks now-a-days is to increase the proportion of elderly people and to improve the disablers quality of life. Improving their quality of life in one way is by making a comfortable home environment into a smart home environment.
The developments in the field of smart home technology are not an isolated process. First the developments should be take place in the society and the development should influence the society by the trend the focus should be on the smart home environment in addition to create the extra value.
Thirdly to support disabled and elderly, creating smart environments has huge potential. However, living fully up to the expectations is a complex process which includes various stake holders.
The expectancy of the life is increased and decreasing the birth rates in the Europe. The people aged over 60 became larger proportion and there is also increases the people aged over 80. The proportion of the population aged over 65 is rising all over the world.
The smart homes development increased extremely in the past years. In different types of smart homes, the increase in possibilities is actually visible. An efficient perception can be used in order to classify smart homes, since smart home technology provides a better frame work than a technical view point and is rapidly changing. The smart home should have the internal and external networks and should also make significant contribution to the quality of life In addition to accessing information and services, both inside the home and outside the home, it allows interactive and remote control systems, with internal and external networks in homes
Stake holders
The stakeholders build intelligent environment very diverse. They all play different role in different opinions. The challenge is not only a technically possible and reliable but to create a concept that should accept by large number of stakeholders. The stakeholders are for example instance architects , project developers, product suppliers housing corporations, builders, electrician, care takers, insurance companies, advising agencies and last to the consumer. In recent years the smart home technology was implemented in new homes. This means that the smart home technology had to be fitted in the existing building process. The advantages of smart home are: Very Cheaper Part of a totality Savings also for parts of predictable installations the installation can be out of sight.
The home is constructed for owned or hired. The residents have to pay additional fees for separate services provided by the owner. and it is maintained by public are private organisations. The market value changes from country to country. It is typical for the market that a third party finances the equipment. The third party finances can be insurance system, welfare organisation or public administration. In some other countries public administration play a role like providing alarm systems, fixed assistive technologies or environmental control systems which are essential for older person or a disabled person.
Smart home technology is the combination of technology and services during home networking. The value of the system does not depend on single system; it depends on how the systems are connected to each other. Moreover the process is not stagnant but the preferences and desires changes from time to time. This technology could provide benefits for assisted living. Now Technology has been focused on the home environment. The topics that concerning the home environment are: infrastructure, integration and interaction, wired versus and speech technology.
General technological developments
There is a race with respect to technology for cheaper, faster and smaller processes for terabit memories and even greater communication bandwidths. At the same time, advances in Microsystems, sensor technologies, software and displays are making the way for new applications and systems with flexible, intuitive and more autonomous behaviour as their characteristics. By pursuing ICT research in combination with other disciplines, breakthroughs are also expected, for example, those related to bio-and life sciences, new materials and from the knowledge base of the biological, social sciences and cognitive
These new technologies will full fill their tasks in which people live and will become part of the environment. User interfaces will disappear and interaction will be with actuators, micro-computers and sensors. The communication in the above said surroundings would be based on informal interaction technologies such as gesture, speech and emotions. In such environment human-computer interaction will be converted into human computer corporation
New materials (e.g. polymer technologies)
Micro- and nanoelectronics (nanocoatings, polymer actuators)
Embedded systems (e.g. as in smart textiles)
Micro System Technology, including biomicrotechnology (biochips, sensors to measure values like blood pressure, temperature, weight, respiration, urine output and to observe activity patterns nutrition, gait sleep)
Energy generation and control technologies (energy harvesting)
Human Machine Interfaces (display technologies, natural language communication)
Communication (e.g. body area network)
Software, web & network technologies (e.g. tele-services)
Infrastructure
There are three different types of layers present in the smart home technology they are:
Network layer
platform layer
user layer
The network layers which are capable for large extent for both inside and outside the house are TV cable, telephone cable and power supply network. In most cases it does not exist because computer cables are low voltage cables which refers to infrared and radio frequent communication
The traditional suppliers will use protocol. For communication between the residents they use remote control and central control. All the different manufacturers will use same protocol for communicating between them.
A home bus is a physical cable used for low voltages. These are used for transferring the signals within the house via certain protocol. There are two types of home bus systems distinguished: the systems with fixed and built-in intelligence programmed via PC. Next to the home bus systems there are power line and RE systems which are used to transfer signals within the home. From the power line systems X10 is the oldest and by improving the results so called as A10 system. Due to the low price in the market the popularity has been increased for both new built and the existed houses.
All media are different in their applications and having advantages and disadvantages. The right selection of the media is cost. in general more data speed means high costs. In telecommunication purposes the bit rate exceeds megabit range for video communication.
The overview of transmission media is
There are some relevant standards according to overview:
EIB: (European installation bus) It is widely used in Europe and is available for power line, radio and signal cables. The most widely used cable in smart homes is signal cable.
KNX: KNX is a new standard result from combination of three European standards. EIB is one of them.
LON: Lon is a proprietary standard used in industries and larger buildings for energy control, access control and steering machinery. This is mainly known for power line, can also supports coaxial cables, signal cables, radio and fibre optical transmission
X10: X10 is a standard for power signalling and widely used for domestic electrical commodities like radiators and lamps. In single house it can be used as environmental control. The protocol has start and smart commands.
IP (internet protocol) IP is used for communicating in and out of the local networks during programming and maintenance. IP is not a bus system.
Integration and interaction
The major problem with the smart home design is integration and interaction with the heterogeneous systems. A smart home should be able to sustain interaction with the heterogeneous systems. First there is a need to interact at the networking level. At this level the interconnectivity cannot be guaranteed due to the mobility of the user. Clients offering services and devices offering it may not connect at same time, they may collide. Therefore the communication should be in connection less. In smart homes backbone fixed infrastructure is available. The backbone network is based on IP protocol. This has success in connection with heterogeneous systems. A good example is internet. More devices are connected through IP network.
Wired versus wireless networks:
The advantages of wireless networks are flexibility and easy installation. Among the drawbacks safety and security cannot reach the levels of the wired network. In some cases advantages overcome the drawbacks so wireless network becomes the most alternative method for the smart home. Originally the wireless networks are based on protocols. But due to huge computer penetration and wireless networks these are been not used. There are some other networks which support smart homes are
Traditional RF home automation network
Wideband RF protocols
Generic Low power networks
Most probably the smart home network will be based on mix of wifi and low power networks in future
Speech technology
There will be a serious problem in having more technology in the home environment. When a person sitting on a chair with remote control in front of a TV set. If there is more technology the remote buttons should be increased to control the functions. If the keys are increased there is a choice of malfunctions increases and the elderly user interfaces gradually decreases. So it is better to control all the functions with the voice controlled system. This can be done by keeping microphones into the walls and for voice output need to keep some loudspeakers. Now the user can execute by voice.
Products and services
The products and services play a important role in creating benefits for the users. There are six types of such categories
Comfort
Energy management
Multimedia and entertainment
healthcare
Security and Safety
Communication
Health care
The health care division is divided into following categories
Active alarm systems: these systems utilises remote emergency systems usually based on telephone and installed in the home for older persons
Passive alarm systems: In this we don’t require the interaction of the people. For example devices recognise the danger and send emergency call automatically
Remote control for care staff: Includes all types of telecommunication based activities and supports the field staff.
Remote support for family care: Includes all types of telecommunications support family care
Telemedicine
Alarm systems play a important role in the smart home environment. the important issue is setting the alarm. For instance if a person had an accident or suddenly becomes unconscious he cannot operate alarm with the wrist or through telephone. Or they may forget that they are wearing alarm button. So to overcome this problem we have to use passive alarm systems. In this the alarms are automatically control with the virtual functions (e.g. pulse, blood pressure, oxygen saturation). When the virtual functions exceeds the predefined limits then it send emergency call.
In order to avoid false alarms receiving from call centres and relatives. Then the receiver can send back the signal by telephone or by message that appears on the wrist of the receiver.
Another huge problem in health care is wandering and way finding. In this if a client is in danger from the home and want to leave from the home it is dangerous for the client.
Safety and security:
Another most important in home environment is safety and security. In general people want to know who is is at the main door or at the in front of the apartment. In many projects they use remote control or telephone or electric locks. If someone is present in front of the door then the resident have to enter pin to off the alarm.
A smoke detector is installed in the kitchen, living room. If smoke is detected by the alarm it send an emergency call to the call centre. Then the call centre will speak with the resident with safety phone that is there real fire or not.
Communication:
Another method most commonly used in the smart home environment is communication. This is used for communicating with the people at the door and other doors at different rooms. When the person is leaving out it is impossible for the resident going to the door or difficult on transferring the wheel chair. So using CCTV can enhance personal security when admitting visitors and verification when leaving the house.
The communication isn’t restricted for the home environment it can also be used for remote learning. In order remote control to be successful there should required infrastructure in the place. in today’s technology , this means student should access to wireless networks or webcams, keyboard or micro phone access and full telecommunication infrastructure is linked to the home and to the outside the world. And the user requirements are possible in class room environment.
