Retrofitted IoT Based Communication Network with Hot Standby Router Protocol and Advanced Features for Smart Buildings

Abstract

The advent of renewable energy sources brings the concept of building power systems, which are located at the load-centres/buildings. Further, the concept of smart building in the modern energy era increases operational efficiency, safety, and consumer comfort, where, all its operations are monitored and controlled by central monitoring and control unit (CMCU). However, for reliable communication between the components of smart building and the CMCU, a well-established network is essential. This network shall provide advanced features such as user alerts, usage details, remote control options, link failure handling, security, etc. However, the traditional IoT network can’t provide all these features and poses a challenge to use it for smart buildings due to inadequate technology to meet the unremitting user requirements. In this context, this paper proposes a retrofitted IoT based communication network with Hot Standby Router Protocol (HSRP) for remote monitoring and control of smart building devices. Besides, this proposed network possess Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) firewall, Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) protocol, and email alert to facilitate all the advanced features. The HSRP handles the link failures by providing a redundant path, thereby ensures reliable communication in the network. The ASA firewall provides intrusion prevention (blocking unauthorized packets). The MQTT enables the broker for broadcasting messages to all the subscribers of a particular topic. Similarly, the email alert provides communication between different users in the building. Altogether, this proposed communication network establishes a reliable monitoring and control facility in smart buildings, which is simulated and verified using Cisco Packet Tracer 7.3.1.