Detecting the Presence of Electronic Devices in Smart Homes Using Harmonic Radar Technology

Beatrice Perez,Gregory Mazzaro,David Kotz,Timothy J Pierson

doi:10.3390/rs14020327

Abstract

Data about users is collected constantly by phones, cameras, Internet websites, and others. The advent of so-called ‘Smart Things’ now enable ever-more sensitive data to be collected inside that most private of spaces: the home. The first step in helping users regain control of their information (inside their home) is to alert them to the presence of potentially unwanted electronics. In this paper, we present a system that could help homeowners (or home dwellers) find electronic devices in their living space. Specifically, we demonstrate the use of harmonic radars (sometimes called nonlinear junction detectors), which have also been used in applications ranging from explosives detection to insect tracking. We adapt this radar technology to detect consumer electronics in a home setting and show that we can indeed accurately detect the presence of even ‘simple’ electronic devices like a smart lightbulb. We evaluate the performance of our radar in both wired and over-the-air transmission scenarios.

Highlights

Smart Homes Using Harmonic RadarIt is no surprise that “smart” consumer electronics are becoming fully integrated into our daily lives.Many smart devices are becoming a common fixture in homes—and yet their presence may not be readily apparent
We present our initial experiments using a harmonic radar to discover all types of smart devices in a home—even those that are powered off
We propose harmonic radar as a means to identify the presence of electronic devices in a home environment

Summary

Introduction

Smart Homes Using Harmonic RadarIt is no surprise that “smart” consumer electronics (e.g., devices that have computational and communication capabilities) are becoming fully integrated into our daily lives.Many smart devices are becoming a common fixture in homes—and yet their presence may not be readily apparent. In many homes today, we find easy-to-spot smart assistants such as Amazon Echo [1] or Google Home [2], but we find smart devices that are more difficult to visually detect, such as smart light bulbs [3], smart door locks [4], or smart refrigerators [5]. Many of these devices have traditionally lacked computational and communications capabilities, and the smart versions may be mistaken for their traditional “dumb” counterparts. Our approach works irrespective of the device’s communication protocols (e.g., Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Zigbee) and should even detect malicious devices attempting to evade detection

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