IST-Africa 2013 Conference Proceedings

Paul Cunningham and Miriam Cunningham (Eds)

IIMC International Information Management Corporation, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-905824-39-7

Towards a Demand-Side Smart Domestic

Electrical Energy Management System
Nomusa DLODLO, Andrew SMITH, Litsietsi MONTSI, Carel KRUGER
CSIR-Meraka Institute, Box 395, Pretoria, 0001, South Africa
Tel: (+27) 0128413190, Fax: (+27) 0128414570
Email: ndlodlo@csir.co.za, acsmith@csir.co.za, lmontsi@csir.co.zam, ckruger1@csir.co.za
Abstract: Energy conservation concerns call for end-users to regulate their electrical
consumption and help achieve a balance between the available energy supply and
demand. Therefore there is a need for rigorous research into smart home energy
management systems that could assist the end-user in achieving this goal. This paper
addresses the issue of electrical energy conservation in the home through the
adoption of smart technologies (one instantiation of smart technologies). Smart
objects are everyday artefacts augmented with sensing, processing and networking
capabilities that enable them not only to communicate with people and other smart
objects, but also discover where they are and what objects are in the vicinity. The
smart home, on the other hand, is an automated home equipped with smart objects
and a home network that is able to transport information between the objects and the
Internet. This research focusses on the design and implementation of a smart home
energy management system that integrates smart technologies such as the smart
phone, cloud, wireless, web server and motes. The research analyses literature on
existing smart home energy systems and technologies and draws lessons from the
analysis on how the proposed architecture should be structured. When completed this
system will allow the end-user to switch single or group of appliances by means of
an Android-based smart phone, be they within their home or at a remote location. In
emergencies, an authorised authority such as the municipality could potentially
control electrical appliances in a whole neighbourhood.
Keywords: smart home, smart energy, mote, cloud, wireless.

1.

Introduction

In order to tackle the ever rising need for electrical energy, timely monitoring and control is
required. A smart home energy management system is designed to allow for the exchange
of instructions between the end-user and the energy provisioning system in the home so that
energy consumption can be optimised. This enables the end-user to share the responsibility
of managing power consumption together with the energy provider.
The main objective of the paper is to design the architecture of a smart-energy aware
home system that enables remote switching of home appliances in order to conserve
electrical energy through an integration of technologies such as the smart phone, motes,
wireless technologies, web server technology and a cloud platform. The design exploits
mobile technology to afford the end-user control over domestic energy using a smart phone.
As long as the end-user is within either cellular or Wi-Fi coverage area, the architecture
makes provision for the end-user to switch appliances on or off, irrespective of their
geographic location. The research analyses literature on existing smart home energy
systems and technologies and draws lessons from the analysis on how the proposed
architecture should be structured.
The remainder of the paper is organised as follows: Section 2 poses the problem
statement, while section 3 gives an introduction to smart environments. Section 4
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introduces smart energy systems technologies. Smart home systems are the subject in
section 5, while the description of the architecture is addressed in section 6. Section 7 gives
a glimpse of the business benefits of the architecture. The conclusion is given in section 8.

2. Problem Statement
Providing energy to any country with a growing population and rising expectations among
the populace is a challenge. Energy production and consumption are closely linked to
sustainable development of any economy. Shortage of energy affects the productivity of
industry and the energy needs of the homes. The strategy in any economy would be to limit
regulation of energy consumption to the homes in order to reach a balance between demand
and supply, as opposed to targeting industry which is likely to have far-reaching
consequences.
The goal of this research is to design the architecture of a smart home energy
management system that is based on smart systems technologies. The objectives of this
research therefore are:
x To identify various smart home management systems and technologies
x Analyse and draw lessons from these smart home energy management systems and
technologies towards the design of the architecture
x Design an architecture of a smart home energy management system
x Implement and evaluate the architecture

3. Introduction to Smart Environments

The combination of the internet and emerging technologies such as embedded sensors and
locating and networking technologies lets us transform everyday objects into smart objects
that can understand and react to their environment. According to (Kortuem, VPDUW
objects are autonomous physical/digital objects augmented with sensing, processing and
network capabilities. They carry chunks of application logic that let them make sense of
their local situation and interact with human users. They sense, ORJ DQG LQWHUSUHW ZKDWV
occurring within themselves and the world, act on their own, intercommunicate with each
RWKHU DQG H[FKDQJH LQIRUPDWLRQ ZLWK SHRSOH According to (Weiser, 1999), a smart
HQYLURQPHQW LV D SK\VLFDO ZRUOG WKDW LV ULFKO\ DQG YLVLEO\ Lnterwoven with sensors,
actuators, displays and computational elements, embedded seamlessly in the everyday
REMHFWVRIRXUOLYHVDQGFRQQHFWHGWKURXJKDFRQWLQXRXVQHWZRUNA smart environment is
one that is able to acquire and apply knowledge about the environment and its inhabitants in
order to improve their experience in that environment (Youngblood, 2005).
The design and modelling of a smart environment can be abstracted to an intelligent
agent paradigm, wherein physical components are what allow the agent to sense and act
upon the environment. The environment perceives the environment using sensors and the
agent reasons about the environment and selects an action that can be taken to change the
state of the environment which can be conveyed through sensors. The information that is
measured by sensors is collected and shared with the help of wireless networks consisting
of a large number of distributed nodes that collaborate and coordinate to accomplish a task
(Cook, 2007). (Beigl, 2001) defined smarWREMHFWVDVDQHYHU\GD\DUWLIDFWDXJPHQWHGZLWK
computing and communication, enabling it to establish and exchange information about
LWVHOIZLWKRWKHUDUWLIDFWVDQGRUFRPSXWHUDSSOLFDWLRQV0DWWHUQVD\VVPDUWREMHFWV
might be able to not only communicate with people and other smart objects, but also to
discover where they are, which other objects are in the vicinity and what has happened to
WKHPLQWKHSDVW
Smart environments have the following features (Smart environments, 2012)
x Remote control of devices such as power line communications to control devices
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Device communication using middleware and wireless communication to form

connected environments
x Information acquisition and dissemination from sensor networks
x Enhanced services by intelligent devices
x Predictive and decision-making capabilities
The use of information provided by smart environments has challenges related to
information security, that is, (Ovaska, 2011):
x A smart space must provide the facilities for a user, device and application to
authenticate with different means of security such as ID, password, public key
exchange, biometrics, etc.
x A smart space has to keep controlling the accesses of appliances and related
authorisations
x A smart space is to guarantee integrity and privacy of shared information
x A smart space might have to support non-repudiation of performed operations and
requests
x Users and smart spaces should protect themselves from use and forwarding of
harmful content
x A smart space should provide the means of real-time auditing the used security
mechanisms and security levels of applications and the space itself
x

4. Smart Energy Systems Technologies

This section gives examples of smart energy systems technologies that have been deployed
and draws conclusions on the identified benefits of these systems.
Wattvision (Wattvision, 2012) is an energy sensor and application that gives real-time
feedback on energy use for conservation. The Wattvision works by gathering data from an
electricity meter. The energy sensor is surface-mounted to the outside of the meter, and
connects the Wattvision gateway to the network. The real-time energy data is analysed on a
computer or mobile device from anywhere, receives email and text message alerts, and
tracks a KRPHVRYHUDOOHIILFLHQF\FRPSDUHd to similar homes. Energy-draining devices and
faulty appliances can be detected.
A smart meter is an electric meter that records consumption of electric energy at
intervals of an hour or less and communicates that information at least back daily to the
utility for monitoring and billing purposes. They enable two-way communication between
the meter and the central system. Smart meters installed across a wide area result in a smart
grid. Consumers receive real-time information about their energy consumption or about
pricing of that energy and make decisions about what loads washing, heating, cooling - to
connect. While conventional meters are only able to measure aggregate energy
consumption, smart meters have several attractive features that allow them to do
significantly more. First, they are able to log, in real time, energy consumption at fine
granularities and store the values in digital form. Smart meters have a significant
communication component that allows them to report their measurements over a wired or
wireless data network. In some cases, smart meters can even communicate with
surrounding infrastructure devices, for example, in homes, to send real-time pricing signals
to end-consumers. Smart meters can typically measure many additional electric parameters,
such as max and min power demand, current, voltage and power factor and can notify the
utility about power outages (Agarwal, 2011).
A micro-grid is a small grid consisting of several consumers and distributed energy
resources of inverter interface and/or synchronous type (Sutanto, 2011). It uses sensing,
embedded processing and digital communication to enable the electricity grid to be
observable (able to be measured and visualised), controllable (able to be manipulated and
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optimised), automated (able to adapt and self-heal), fully integrated (fully interoperable
with existing systems and with the capacity to incorporate a diverse set of energy sources)
(World Economic Forum, 2009). It is a power transmission and distribution network that
can incorporate millions of sensors all connected through an advanced, two-way
communications and data acquisition system to provide real-time monitoring, diagnosis and
control that enables more efficient use of electricity and measurement and verification of
carbon dioxide reduction efforts (Howard, 2007).
The functionality offered by the networked embedded devices that would realise the
monitoring and control part is crucial for the success of the smart grid. A smart grid will be
a collaborative service ecosystem (Karnouskos, 2011). In the green economy, for example,
prediction for sunny and windy weather will probably mean that more energy will be
produced as green generators. In parallel, homes can plan to schedule energy hungry tasks
during time that electricity is available from local generators (e.g. photovoltaic panels).
AlertMe is a technology platform which exists part in the cloud and part in the home
creating a secure Home Area Network that connects the user to their home, energy and
devices, giving real-time visibility and control from anywhere in the world at any time
(AlertMe, 2012).
6PDUW6\QFKVWHFKQRORJ\LVGHVLJQHGWRFUHDWHDWZR-way communications system that
provides customers with detailed information about their energy usage, allowing them to
better manage their energy use and bills. The system uses existing cellular networks for
large-scale, high-performance smart grid communications (SmartSynch, 2011).
3HRSOH 3RZHUV QHZ PRELOH HQHUJ\ SODWIRUP (People Power, 2012) is an open and
extensible cloud-based platform that allows the user to monitor up-to-the-minute household
energy usage from an iPhone or Android smartphone. The user interface dashboards can be
configured to display energy usage in kilowatts per hour or in terms of local currency.
Energy use can be displayed by day, month or year and energy usage between two points in
the storage history can be compared. A budget feature also allows you to set targets against
which to compare ongoing usage.
In remote management, data associated with energy expenses can now be transmitted to
the utility company without anybody going on site. In the home comfort system, heating,
air conditioning, ventilation, lighting and doors and windows can all be automated and
manipulated by remote control. Various electrical appliances such as washing machines,
dishwashers, refrigerators and cooking devices can be programmed to carry out their tasks.
&HOOXODU SKRQHV DUH ILWWHG ZLWK *36 WR HVWDEOLVK D OLQN EHWZHHQ RQHV KRPH DQG WKH
outdoors, easing interactions and interconnections between various agents who are either
monitoring or being monitored.

5. Smart Home Energy Management Systems

Smart homes are also known as automated homes, intelligent buildings, integrated home
systems or domotics. They incorporate devices that control features of the home and can be
classified according to the types of equipment and systems installed. A smart home can be
described by a house which is equipped with smart objects, a home network that makes it
possible to transport information between objects and a residential gateway to connect the
smart home to the outside internet world (Ricquebourg, 2011). Smart objects make it
possible to interact with inhabitants and to observe them. These smart objects can be a light
which can be controlled, a refrigerator which is aware of its state. The major targets of the
smart home are improving comfort, dealing with medical rehabilitation, monitoring
mobility and physiological parameters and delivering therapy. Indoor communications can
be via Bluetoooth, RFID, Zigbee and 6LowPAN.
The following are examples of smart home energy management systems. ,Q L/('V
icontrol system (iLED, 2012) with a button press, using an iPad, iPhone or Android, all
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electronic systems in the house can be controlleG +RPH DQG $ZD\ VHWWLQJV FDQ EH
VHOHFWHGTXLFNO\DQGHDVLO\)RUWKLQJVWRUXQDVQRUPDOVHW+RPHZLOOWXUQRQWKHQRUPDO
day-to-day equipment specified. SHW AZD\ZKHQRQHOHDYHVWKHKRXVH ZLOOWXUQRIIDOO
non-essential equipment. When not at home, it is easy to switch off or on, any electric
gadgets. With Smartline Insteon Controller, one can turn home lights and control the
thermostat while they are away from home. It uses iPhone4.
The European Commission co-funded research project SmartHouse/SmartGrid is
developing an architecture that is based on smart houses interacting with smart grids (Kok,
2009). The architecture enables the aggregation of houses as intelligent networked
collaborations instead of isolated passive units. Feedback is given to the user on his/her
energy behaviour. There is better local match between demand and supply. The network
operators maintain or restore stability in distribution networks in an active manner. Inhouse energy management is based on user feedback, real-time tariffs, intelligent control of
appliances and provision of technical and commercial services to grid operators and energy
suppliers. The variable price profile given to the consumer everyday reflects the market
conditions. A timely display of energy consumption is expected to have positive effects on
energy savings and planning and forecasting production at the actual moment of delivery.
Infrastructural investments are optimised through the use of existing assets by active
management of the services delivered by the smart houses. After a blackout, the local grid
starts up quickly.
(Wisner, 2006) reports on a smart home architecture that enables end-users to easily use
their mobile devices to instruct their home devices and services to interact with each other
and to dynamically react to events happening in the environment. Mobile phones are ideal
GHYLFHVWRSURJUDPDQGFRQWUROWKHVPDUWKRPH7RGD\VVPDUWSKRQHVDUHPRELOHDOZD\Von networked computers that resemble the consumer notion of universal remote controls,
but are also personal and much more capable (e.g. processing, storage, multimedia,
networking) and with a support for a multitude of user interaction modalities (e.g. GUI,
voice, gestures, touch) (Digital networking alliance, 2006). (Koskela, 2004) found that
users prefer a global remote control for instant control when studying interaction in a smart
home with interactive household objects such as lamps, curtains and information
DSSOLDQFHV 7KH\ GHVFULEH LQVWDQW FRQWURO LQ WHUPV RI ULJKW QRZ DQG ULJKW KHUH ZKLFK
requires centralised and mobile means. (Kuhnel, 2011) focuses on building a gesture-based
interface to a smart home system using a mobile device. An interface for an Apple iPhone,
using accelerometer data for gesture recognition and the touch screen to provide a simple
GUI for device selection is provided
The University of Florida has developed Gator Tech Smart House for the elderly and
the disabled. It is based on environmental sensors for comfort and energy efficiency, safety
and security, activity/mobility monitoring, reminder/prompting technologies, fall detection
system, smart devices and appliances and biometric technologies for the physiological
monitoring (Helal, 2005).
The adaptive house at the University of Colorado is not a programmable house, but a
house that programs itself. The house adapts to the lifestyle of inhabitants. It monitors the
HQYLURQPHQWDOVWDWHDQGVHQVHVDFWLRQVRIWKHLQKDELWDQW7KHKRXVHOHDUQVWKHLQKDELWDQWV
schedules, preferences and occupancy patterns. The information is used to anticipate
LQKDELWDQWV QHHGV DQG FRQVHUYH HQHUJ\ E\ FRQWUROOLQJ DLU KHDWLQJ OLJKWLQJ ZDWHU KHDWLQJ
and ventilation (Adaptive House, 2012).
The Duke University smart home combines solar energy which produces 30% of the
KRPHV QHHGHG SRZHU DQG QDWXUDO KHDW WKDW SHQHWUDWHV WKH KRPHV HQRUPRXV HQHUJ\efficient glass window to reduce the heating costs. A human-tracking project uses and
RFID e-Locator for human tracking (Humboldt State CCAT, 2012).

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MavHome at the University of Texas is an agent-based smart home to maximise

inhabitant comfort. It perceives the state of the home through sensors and acts upon the
environment through effectors (device controllers). It detects daily heat on alarms, lights,
coffee makers, hot tub and sprinkler (MavHome, 2012).
EnOcean Alliance advances support for IP-based wireless energy-harvesting sensor and
control technologies for green intelligent buildings. The wireless, battery-less energy
harvesting sensors and associated control systems are now fully interoperable with TCP/IP.
By establishing TCP/IP interoperability with its wireless-enabled end-devices and their
associated IP-based control systems, a building management solution designed to offer
maximum energy and operational efficiency is enabled. The intention is to enable building
owners and facility managers to monitor, manage and control these systems centrally and
from any web-enabled device, from anywhere in the world (EnOcean, 2011).
A smart home with an IPv6-equipped electricity smart meter prototype reports meter
readings to cloud-hosted business services which collect readings from a number of meters,
and can detect deviations from expected usage. In case of unexpected power shortage or
surplus, the tariff is accordingly adjusted and the smart meters are informed. In the case of
price increase, it is up to the user to either pay the higher price, or to reduce her
consumption (automatically based on their predefined policy). Similarly, for a price drop,
the user can choose to execute energy-hungry tasks. By allowing an energy gateway to
control not only electricity but also other devices in the household infrastructure such as
heating, the energy management can be made more efficient (Hoglund, 2011).
A home energy management system to collect power consumption and demand status
from home appliances using smart meters is considered in (Niyato, 2011). The status and
demand data is transferred from the smart meter of each house to the traffic concentrator or
gateway, which will then forward to the wide area network (WAN) base station (e.g.
WiMAX). This WAN base station is deployed for a particular service area with a number of
houses. The base stations forward traffic to the control centre for data processing and
storage.
The smart home integrating energy-efficiency (Jan, 2011)) features is built on top of
Hydra, a generic open source middleware framework that facilitates the intelligent
communication of heterogeneous embedded devices through an overlay P2P network and
supports technologies such as Ethernet, Bluetooth, RF, Zigbee, RFID, WiFi, etc. Common
devices available in private households are interconnected and wireless power metering
plugs integrated to gain access to energy consumption data. The data are used for
monitoring and analysing consumed energy on device level in near real-time. Further,
transparent information about the energy usage can be used to efficiently program and
control home appliances depending on various factors, e.g., electricity price.
(Al-Ali, 2012) describes the design of a home energy management system that
integrates the power resources from the traditional grid and renewable energy sources,
namely solar energy and storage energy. A single chip microcontroller is used to multiplex
the three power sources to supply the house with its required power based on
communication between the utility and the house owner. The communication protocol,
energy flow, demand response and billing system hardware and software are developed
using a home gate and utility server. The home gateway is a single chip embedded system
integrated with GSM modem and installed in the consumer premises. The utility server is a
high-end PC and is installed at the utility headquarters. Messages are exchanged between
the home gateway and utility server.

6. Components and Architecture of System

The following section describes the components and architecture of the smart energy
management system. The first subsection draws lessons from the literature collected in the
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preceding sections on how our architecture should be structured. The next subsection
describes the architecture itself.
6.1

Lessons Drawn

In the technologies that section 3 identifies are a number of issues that contribute to our
architecture:
x Feedback to the energy consumer on the consumption levels via email, text, smart
meters is vital in raising the awareness of the consumer on energy use, allowing
them to better manage use and in detecting faulty appliances.
x Devices such as mobile technologies, for example, enable visualisation of
consumption and control of home appliances anytime from anywhere.
x Technologies such as the cloud cut down the costs on infrastructure investment as
they are shared with other service providers.
x An energy gateway can be adopted to control devices in the household
infrastructure.
x Analysis of real data in comparison to other homes and its communication via
wireless networks on energy usage
x Sensing technologies for real-time monitoring
x Programming home appliances to carry out tasks
The technologies in section 4 draw on the following issues:
x Controlling home gadgets can be done remotely using cellular phones
x Aggregation of houses as intelligent networked collaborations which is why in this
research we suggest switching off whole neighbourhoods under a single command
x Intelligent control of appliances
x Timely display of energy consumption
x Perceiving the state of a home through sensors. In this case we will be using motes
as sensors
x )HHGEDFNRQWKHXVHUVHQHUJ\EHKDYLRXU
x Cloud hosting that detects deviations from expected usage
x Energy gateway to control energy devices in the household.
From the above analysis, the technologies that our architecture will rely on are: the
web-based energy gateway server, smartphone for visualisation and remote control , mote
for sensing and actuation, cloud for hosting database and wireless technologies for
communication.
6.2

Motes

The Internet of Things (IoT) holds the potential to propagate end-point data to
geographically remote processes to be analysed and optionally acted on. Commands for
action can be distributed to geographically remote end-points using the same IoT
mechanism. End-point data creation and actuation is made possible by embedded
FRPSXWDWLRQ GHYLFHV 7KHVH GHYLFHV RIWHQ FDOOHG PRWHV KDYH been in development and
XVH IRU DOPRVW D GHFDGH LQ VXSSRUW RI VPDUW HQYLURQPHQWV VXFK DV VPDUW KRXVHV VPDUW
buildings, and smart factories. What makes the current motes different from the early
versions, is the reduction in their size for the same, and even increased, computation power.
Not only have the embedded processors improved with leaps and bounds as predicted by
0RRUHV /DZ (Schaller, 1997), but the hereto incompatible have been integrated into a
single package; both the digital circuitry and the analogue radio frequency components are
now available as a fully functional electronic device. This type of single package is known
LQ WKH LQGXVWU\ DV D V\VWHP-on-a-FKLS :LWK VXFK LQWHJUDWLRQ QHZ DSSOLFDWLRQV FDQ EH
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developed in the laboratory and eventually deployed as end-SRLQW,R7LQWHOOLJHQWVHQVRUV

and actuators.
One of our research aims is to integrate the latest generation of motes with the real and
urgent needs of Africa. To this end we have chosen the STMicroelectronics motes
[STM32W-RFCKIT] which are based on the powerful $50&RUWH[-M3 processor and
a radio transmitter/receiver pair, all integrated into a single surface-mount quad flat pack. In
addition to the ST hardware, we have made the decision to use the Contiki operating system
(Dunkels, 2007) to host our custom-developed applications that execute on the mote
hardware.
Contiki is an operating system developed by Adam Dunkels and members of the
Swedish Institute of Computer Science [SICS], specifically to address the need for low
energy consuming, resource constrained, embedded circuitry that can function as networked
motes. Our design exploits the IPv6 stack developed specially for the Contiki operating
system called uIPv6. This stack implements a 6Lowpan adaptation layer (Shelby, 2011),
called SicsLowpan [Silva]. We further designed our system to make use of the IPv6
Routing Protocol for Low Power and Lossy Networks (RPL) (Vasseur, 2011) for routing
the data to the gateway and with Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) (Shelby, 2011a)
for communication at the application layer.

1
3

Figure 1: Two motes. (1) Size AAA battery, (2) Mote module, (3) System-on-a-chip, (4) Mote carrier, and (5)
USB-mote.

Figure 1 shows the hardware we are developing our solution with. The USB-mote
(Figure 1 (5)) plugs into a computer which also powers it. In contrast, the mote carrier
(Figure 1 (4)) is powered by two batteries (Figure 1(1)) that plug into a socket on the
reverse side of the mote carrier. The actual mote is small (Figure 1(2)) and serves as a
mounting for the system-on-a-chip (Figure 1 (3)) along with a small number of supporting
electronic components.
6.3

Proposed System Architecture

The idea of this architecture (Figure 2) is to enable the home owner to switch on or off
home appliances, either one by one or as a collective depending on their location in the
house. For example, when the owner is not in the bedroom, they may give a once-off
command for all appliances in the bedroom to be switched off at the same time or one at a

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time. Therefore this means that the system must be aware at any point in time of what
appliance is located where in the house.
In the home is a gateway server, which is a web server application and has the ability to
switch the home appliances on and off on instruction from the home owner via a smart
phone. This switching on and off can be effected either when the home owner is inside the
home or away from home. When the home owner is in the home, no internet connectivity is
required for the instruction to be communicated from the smart phone to the web server
application, but there is wireless communication protocol in the form of 6LowPan.
Advancements such as the effective penetration of the internet in embedded computing and
the Web of Things, allows the realisation of web-oriented smart homes (Kamilaris, 2011).
By including a 6LowPAN-based wireless sensor network inside the home environment,
issues such as device discovery and service description are improved. Web techniques such
as HTTP caching and push messaging, facilitate the efficient operation of a web-based
smart home.
x
x
x
x

Authorised person

Appliance serial number

Appliance description
Appliance location
Appliance state (on/off)

Synchronise at regular
intervals if possible

Step
5'a
Step
5'b

API

Step
5'

API

Android app

Occupantt

Step Step
4
6'a

Step
3a
Step
5

Protocol:
IPv6
x Appliance serial number
x Appliance state (on/off)
x Appliance location

API

Step
6a
Step
3b

Scenarios
API

1. Gateway severed from Internet

2. Gateway within reach of occupant

Step
2b

3. Gateway connected to Internet

4. Gateway out of reach of occupant

API

gateway

Description

Registration
1
Register appliance (serial no + name + location)
2a
Mote registers on gateway database with serial no
2b
ditto
Step
3a
Occupant requests meta info and add location of appliance to meta info and update gateway dB
1
3b
ditto
4
Update global dB
Local interaction
5
Occupant instructs appliance to change state
6a
Appliance is instructed to change state
6b
ditto

Step
6b

Mote

Protocol:
6LowPan

Mote

Mote

Room x

Appliance

Step

Step
2a

Room y

Serial Number

Serial Number

Serial Number

123456789012345627890

123456278901234567890

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house

Remote interaction
5'
Occupant instructs appliance to change state
5'a
ditto
5'b
ditto
6'a
Appliance is instructed to change state
6b
ditto

Figure 2: System Architecture

When the home owner is away, internet connectivity is required and the internet
protocol IPv6 is utilised for communication between the smart phone and the web server.
Each appliance in the house has got a serial number and has a mote attached to it. Any
appliance can be in any location in the house at any point in time, e.g. a fridge can be in the
kitchen and a television can either be in the lounge or bedroom. To keep track of the details
of the appliance and its location there are two databases in the system. The local database
sits on the local gateway server, while the remote database sits in the cloud platform that is
H[WHUQDOWRWKHKRPH(DFKPRWHUHJLVWHUVLQIRUPDWLRQRQHDFKDSSOLDQFHVVHULDOQXPEHULWV
location in the house, its description and its state, that is, the on/off state with the local
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database for the appliance it is associated with. These two databases, that is, the local and
external, are synchronised at regular intervals.
Switching appliances on and off is done by the home owner using a smart phone which
runs an Android application. When the home owner is in the house the processing is done
locally, and when the owner is away from home, access to the gateway application for
processing is done via the internet. Since the appliances can be moved from one room to the
next at any point in time, it is the prerogative of the owner to update the system on the
location of the appliance. Through the smart phone the occupant requests the meta
information and adds the location of the appliance to the meta information and updates the
local gateway database. Synchronisation of the databases occurs automatically to enable the
update of the database in the cloud.
Remote instruction to switch off all homes in the neighbourhood can also be given by a
responsible authority, e.g., the municipality for the purposes of load shedding. Instruction is
given through an interaction with an API on the cloud platform and drawing the contents of
the database in the cloud which in turn instructs the gateway web server applications in the
various homes to switch of all appliances.
6.4

Software for the Architecture

For the mobile platform independence (mobile OS), the system will be accessed through a
mobile browser compatible interface. This means that the web interface will be developed
in such a way that it is compatible with mobile browsers such as Internet Explorer Mobile,
opera mini, Blackberry browser, Android browser and other mobile browsers, etc. If an
application is developed for a particular mobile platform (device / operating system), then it
will not work on other platforms. Therefore mobile platform independence is essential for
browser interactivity
In cases where mobile applications have to be developed, interoperability is essential.
For that to happen, services which the system offers have to be deployed using web
services. Web services use XML as the standard for communication data interchange. In
the case where the mobile application will be developed, for example, on Android, such
applications will connect and link their data to a web service that will be on the system.
This will be universal for all applications on other platforms. This will also solve
interoperability issues for the different applications from different platforms trying to use
the system.
The web server application will be developed using the Java Enterprise Edition
Framework for network, query processing and database functionality. The web service
generates an XML file which can be interpreted and manipulated in any programming
language, e.g. C#. This is in a bid to make the system scalable by ensuring there is
interoperability and many entry points to which other software vendors can connect. The
hardware communication will be in C. C is a much lower level language with great memory
manipulation and hardware flexibility. Java is not good for hardware programming as
opposed to C. The intercommunication between C and Java will be established through the
Java Native Interface (JNI). JNI enables calls to other languages inside Java code or vice
versa. The most likely operating system to run the server on is Linux as it is an open source
platform. This makes it easier to integrate new software into it as opposed to proprietary
operating systems.

7. Business Benefits of the Architecture

The design and implementation of the proposed architecture requires a multidisciplinary
research team. The skills set ranges from mobile software developers to program the
smartphone, electronic engineers to program the motes, networking specialists for
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intercommunication between the various technologies, business analysts to design the

system, to name but a few. The introduction of the mobile device enables better
visualisation of the information and an ability to control devices by remote control. It
improves effectiveness with anytime, anywhere mobile device access. This efficient
management of energy is convenient and reduces associated costs. The technology is in
real-time, increases productivity, has an ease of use and energy efficiency. This assists users
make informed decisions. The cloud platform enables sharing of infrastructure with other
agencies for cost-effective access to resources. It reduces the total cost of ownership, and
enables universal access to home. It responds to the demand for control of energy. No
expertise is required to use the system. To produce a working system would require in
excess of half a year and an additional half a year to test the system in a live environment, if
the required expertise is available.

8. Conclusion and Recommendations

In an effort to balance electrical energy supply and demand, this research introduces the
design of a smart home energy management system. The design draws on identified gaps
and opportunities in existing smart home energy management systems and technologies.
The system is designed to exploit smart phone technology in order to control home
appliances, be it within the home or from a remote location. The onus is left with the enduser to control their home energy consumption as they can potentially switch any connected
appliances using a smart phone. With energy supply being a contentious issue the world
over, research on smart home energy systems provides an opportunity for research
collaboration between Africa and Europe.

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