Home Area Network Research Articles

Performance of Smart Grid Dynamic HAN With RQAM and GMSK Modulation

In smart grid communications, home area network (HAN) plays an important role in managing data transmission among communicating devices through a smart meter. Performance of the network depends on the efficiency of modulation schemes used in the communicating devices such as rectangular quadrature amplitude modulation (RQAM) and Gaussian minimum shift keying (GMSK). Saleh-Valenzuela (S-V) and Weibull fading channels are appropriate models for indoor communication channels. Average symbol error rate (ASER) and average channel capacity (ACC) performance of indoor dynamic HANs with communicating devices using RQAM and GMSK are analyzed for these channel models. Numerical results are presented to demonstrate the effect of traffic intensity, number of active devices in HAN, and the modulation types with parameters of practical interest.

Improvement of Spectral Efficiency in Home Area Network using Cognitive Radio Algorithm

The faster development of wireless communications has made the spectrum ending up with increasingly with more shortage. The idea of CR was proposed to meet the problem of spectrum effectiveness. In the cognitive networks, the SUs are permitted to detect, distinguish and access the frequency bands that are not at present used by the PU’s. the SU’s must outfit with the spectrum access information to use the primary user’s licence in the home region network. We propose a maximum throughput and power based cognitive radio for home region systems (HAN). At the point when there are different SU’s and numerous channels, spectrum sharing must be taken into account. In this paper we additionally propose a system of multiple channel sensing. We consider the interference to PU brought about by the dynamic access and the erroneous spectrum sensing technique. We investigate the obstruction brought about by the secondary user’s through a reestablishment hypothesis. Under the limitation of interference to primary user, the queuing theory is used to overcome this issue and to obtain the higher data rate of SU’s. finally, it is demonstrated that the cyclostationary detection method can be improved when extra channels are accessible.

A Hybrid Key Agreement Scheme for Smart Homes Using the Merkle Puzzle

Cryptographic keys should be established for the smart home devices in order to secure home area networks. In certain smart home applications, however, the devices might be produced by different factories. As a result, it becomes impractical to assume devices are preloaded with secrets before leaving factories. Moreover, in some scenarios, smart home devices have no access to an online trusted third party. These problems make conventional key agreement schemes inapplicable for these devices. It is investigated that devices can extract secrets from received signal strength (RSS) measurements at the physical layer. However, the bit extraction rate is low. The Merkle puzzle is introduced to design the key agreement scheme by expanding the low entropy seed to high entropy secret key. However, it introduces considerable time and computation costs. To alleviate these problems, in this article, we design a hybrid key agreement scheme for smart homes. Namely, smart home devices first extract short random keys at the physical layer. Then, they establish secret communication keys at higher layers by making use of the Merkle puzzle. In this way, secret keys can be established without using any preloaded secrets or online trusted third party. We prove the security of the new scheme and present a prototype implementation using Ralink WiFi cards. Moreover, we evaluate the performance of our scheme and compare it with other related schemes. The analysis shows that comparing with the related schemes, in our scheme, the time cost is at least one order of magnitude lower, the computation cost is at least five orders of magnitude lower, and the extra communication cost is moderate.

SDN, slicing, and NFV paradigms for a smart home: A comprehensive survey

AbstractLiving in a smart home is an entirely new experience, which enhances our everyday life. Many manufactures and internet of things service providers developed their own smart home services from which the customer can benefit from running a software over his smartphone or tablet. Today, it is becoming increasingly complex for the homeowner to control and manage the growing number of heterogeneous home connected devices through a multitude of available services. Several researchers proposed to improve the home area network design by introducing the software defined networking approach. Although, the software‐defined network (SDN) approach has many advantages, combining it with other approaches like slicing and network function virtualization can give more benefits such as improving the quality of service and the quality of experience, the management, and the control of the network. In this review, we present and discuss recent works that improve the design of the home area network considering SDN or a combination of SDN with slicing and network function virtualization.

Anonymous authentication key agreement scheme with pairing-based cryptography for home-based multi-sensor Internet of Things

Home-based multi-sensor Internet of Things, as a typical application of Internet of Things, interconnects a variety of intelligent sensor devices and appliances to provide intelligent services to individuals in a ubiquitous way. As families become more and more intelligent, complex, and technology-dependent, there is less and less need for human intervention. Recently, many security attacks have shown that Internet home-based Internet of Things have become a vulnerable target, leading to personal privacy problems. For example, eavesdroppers can acquire the identity of specific devices or sensors through public channels, which is not secure, to infer individual public life in the home area network. Authentication is the essential portion of many secure systems processing of verifying and declaring identity. Before providing confidential information, home-based-Internet of Things service authenticates users and devices. The communication and processing capabilities of intelligent devices are limited. Therefore, in home-based Internet of Things, lightweight authentication and key agreement technology are very important to resist known attacks. This article proposes an anonymous authenticated key agreement protocol using pairing-based cryptography. The protocol proposed in this article provides lightweight computation and ensures the security of communication between home-based multi-sensor Internet of Things network and Internet network.

Design and development of advanced smart energy management system integrated with IoT framework in smart grid environment

The day-to-day increased usage of power appliance by consumers is a growing concern in the energy sector, which creates an imbalance in the ratio of demand and supply. Demand-side energy management is an imperative tool to avoid significant deficiency from the supply end and improve energy efficiency. The trend in energy management lays focus on reducing the overall cost of electricity without limiting the consumption counterpart by instead choosing to reduce the power consumption during peak hours. The above issue seeks for design and development of a flexible and portable system to cover a wide variety of consumers for balancing the overall system. The design of smart energy management system is intended to replace the scenario of a complete power outage in a region with partial load shedding in a controlled manner as per the consumer’s preference. Demonstration of experimental work is carried out assuming demand response event and also, considering the maximum demand limit constraint with different cases and changing the order of priority assigned to an appliance. Cost optimization algorithms based on time of usage and user comfort level with sensory information features are embedded within SEMS. Reliable ZigBee communication for home area network is established and also, an IoT environment is developed for data storage and analytics.

A lightweight IPsec‐based energy home area networks

AbstractThe smart grid is a complex architecture that involves several networks to exchange data among smart grid domains. The smart meter communicates with intelligent electronic devices (IEDs) through the home area network (HAN) to improve the energy management inside home. This communication can be vulnerable to significant attacks (eavesdropping, spoofing, replay, etc). In this paper, we propose an adaptive IPsec solution for the energy HAN that considers the constrained computational capacity of the devices and the wide range of IED manufacturer. The goal of the proposed solution is to guarantee confidentiality, authentication, and antireplay in providing end‐user energy efficiency. Simulation experiments are conducted to evaluate the latency and the success rate for HAN low‐latency applications when security is provided by using IPsec. Furthermore, we compare performances of the proposed solution with one of the most supported solution proposed by the ZigBee alliance and called Smart Energy profile.

IoT based Home Area Network Smart Meter System Design using ARM 7

IoT based Home Area Network Smart Meter System Design using ARM 7

DYNAMIC SMART GRID COMMUNICATION PARAMETERS BASED COGNITIVE RADIO NETWORK

The demand for more spectrums in a smart grid communication network is a significant challenge in originally scarce spectrum resources. Cognitive radio (CR) is a powerful technique for solving the spectrum scarcity problem by adapting the transmission parameters according to predefined objectives in an active wireless communication network. This paper presents a cognitive radio decision engine that dynamically selects optimal radio transmission parameters for wireless home area networks (HAN) of smart grid applications via the multi-objective differential evolution (MODE) optimization method. The proposed system helps to drive optimal communication parameters to realize power saving, maximum throughput and minimum bit error rate communication modes. A differential evolution algorithm is used to select the optimal transmission parameters for given communication modes based on a fitness function that combines multiple objectives based on appropriate weights. Simulation results highlight the superiority of the proposed system in terms of accuracy and convergence as compared with other evolution algorithms (genetic optimization, particle swarm optimization, and ant colony optimization) for different communication modes (power saving mode, high throughput mode, emergency communication mode, and balanced mode).

The Challenges and Risks facing ICT in the Management and Operation of the Smart Grid

The Smart Grid integrates the traditional electrical power grid with information and communication technologies (ICT). Such integration empowers the electrical utilities providers and consumers, improves the efficiency and the availability of the power system while constantly monitoring, controlling and managing the demands of customers. Through smart grid, the power system becomes smart by communicating, sensing, control and applying intelligence. The Smart Grid is also kept the environment free from pollution; minimize the cost, effective operations, against all types of hazards and danger. Smart Grid is a huge complex network composed of millions of devices and entities connected with each other through wireless communications techniques including Home Area Networks (HANs) and Wide Area Networks (WANs). Such a massive network comes with many security concerns and vulnerabilities. In this paper, we highlight the complexity of the smart grid network and discuss the comparison between heterogeneous network. We discuss then the challenges that exist in securing the smart power grid and the countermeasures and solutions applied for information and communication networks to secure Smart Power Grid. We conclude by over viewing the key functions and benefits of using the Smart Gird technology and how this impacts on human livelihood, economy and the environment.

Information and Communication Technologies for Smart Water Grid Applications

The use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) is the key to operate a change from the traditional manual reading of water meters and sensors to an automated system where high frequency data is remotely collected and analyzed in real time, one of the main components of a Smart Water Grid. The recent boom of ICT offers a wide range of both wired and wireless technologies to achieve this objective. We review and present in this article the most widely recognized technologies and protocols along with their respective advantages, drawbacks and applicability range which can be Home Area Network (HAN), Building Area Network (BAN) or Local/Neighborhood Area Network (LAN/NAN). We also present our findings and we give recommendations on the application of ICT in Smart Water Grids and future work needed.

Two-tier anomaly detection based on traffic profiling of the home automation system

Smart building equipment and automation systems often become a target of attacks and are used for attacking other targets located out of the Home Area Network. Attacks are often related to changes in traffic volume, disturbed packet flow or excessive energy consumption. Their symptoms can be recognized and interpreted locally, using software agent at Home Gateway. Although anomalies are detected locally at the Home Gateway, they can be exploited globally. Thus, it is significantly important to detect global attack attempts through anomalies correlation.Our proposal in this paper is the involvement of the Network Operator in Home Area Network security. Our paper describes a novel strategy for anomaly detection that consists of shared responsibilities between user and network provider. The proposed two-tier Intrusion Detection System uses a machine learning method for classifying the monitoring records and searching suspicious anomalies across the network at the service provider's data center. Result show that local anomaly detection combined with anomaly correlation at the service providers level can provide reliable information on the most frequent IoT devices misbehavior which may be caused by infection.

Smart Load Node for Nonsmart Load Under Smart Grid Paradigm: A New Home Energy Management System

This article presents a novel approach for efficient operation of non-smart household appliances under smart grid environment using the proposed smart load node (SLN). In real world scenario, there are so many non-smart loads currently in use and embedding appliance specific intelligence into them to make them as smart loads will be more expensive compared to the proposed SLN, which is a common solution for all types of non-smart loads. This makes the proposed low-cost SLN, which neither requires any infrastructural change in the electrical wiring of a house nor any constructional change in home appliances at the manufacturing stage and at the consumer end, as a feasible solution for intelligent operation of non-smart home appliances under smart grid environment. The SLNs, which are placed in a home like distributed wireless sensor nodes, form a home area network (HAN). The HAN includes a load management unit (LMU) which acts as master for all distributed SLNs. Wi-Fi is chosen as a medium of communication in the HAN. The LMU incorporates load management algorithm which is written in Python script.

Cost-efficient half-duplex 10 Gbit/s all-optical indoor optical wireless communication enabled by a low-cost Fabry-Perot laser/photodetector.

To develop an indoor optical wireless communication (OWC) system, both the system complexity/cost and data rate need to be taken into consideration. In this Letter, a cost-efficient half-duplex OWC system for photonic home area network applications is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. A low-cost Fabry-Perot laser diode is proposed to be employed as both the downlink receiver (Rx) and uplink transmitter at the user side. Enabled by the Fabry-Perot transceiver, the indoor transmission of 10Gbit/s four-level pulse-amplitude-modulation signal for both downlinks and uplinks is experimentally achieved over a 1.7km single-mode fiber and 1.1m free space. Moreover, the proposed scheme also enables us to operate an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) signal. The bit error rate levels of multi-gigabit OFDM data for both downlinks and uplinks over a 10h measurements are all under a 7% forward error correction limit of 3.8×10-3, which indicates that the proposed system is robust and, thus, can provide a promising solution for high-speed low-cost home area OWC networks.

Millimeter-wave home area network prospect with cost-effective RoF links

The growth towards the millimeter-wave band in the home area networks (HAN) leads to high data rate transmission to satisfy the new user services. Unfortunately, the transmission coverage in this band is limited to short distances because of the strong air absorption and obstacles such as walls. The effort is then focused on the extension of the network coverage of the wireless link in this band. Solutions based on multiple connected access points to optical fibers are useful methods to ensure wireless connectivity to the entire home. For HAN applications, radio-over-fiber (RoF) using intensity modulation and direct detection technique is the mostly favorite technology for the transmission of a broadband wireless signal because dealing with a cost-effective solution. We investigate in this paper the performance of such RoF-wireless architecture with low-cost optoelectronic modules through the error vector magnitude (EVM) metric. The RoF links investigated are a directly modulated VCSEL with integrated photoreceiver module, an electroabsorption-modulated laser with PIN photodiode and a Mach–Zehnder Modulator with PIN photodiode. A simulation approach based on equivalent electrical circuit models of photonic components is developed in ADS (Advanced Design System) by using a co-simulation technique that combines both analog and digital signals. The downlink channel of the complete transmission system including wireless channel and frequency conversion circuits to millimeter-wave (mm-wave) band is studied by simulation. The obtained results of EVM show good performances of cost-effective links with QPSK and 16-QAM modulation over a dynamic range of 15 dB.

IEEE Access Special Section: Cyber-Physical Systems

In recent years, there is an increasing synergy between computational technologies and physical components. So-called Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) are composed of a collection of devices interacting with each other and communicating with the physical world. They integrate computation and communication aspects together with control and monitoring techniques. Various CPS applications can be found in almost all areas of human life, such as manufacturing systems, smart grids, robotics, transportation systems, medical devices, military, home area networks and smart buildings.

Analysis of the Efficiency-Energy with Regression and Classification in Household Using K-NN

This paper aims to study energy consumption in a house. Home energy man-agement system (HEMS) has become very important, because energy consumption of a residential sector accounts for a significant amount of total energy consumption. However, a conventional HEMS has some architectural limitations among dimensional variables reusability and interoperability. Furthermore, the cost of implementation in HEMS is very expensive, which leads to the disturbance of the spread of a HEMS. Therefore, this study proposes an Internet of Things (IoT) based HEMS with lightweight photovoltaic (PV) system over dynamic home area networks (DHANs), which enables the construction of a HEMS to be scalable reusable and interoperable. The study suggests a technique for decreasing cost of energy that HEMS is using and various perspectives in system. The method that proposed is K-NN (K-Nearest Neighbor) which helps us to analyze the classification and regression datasets. This paper has the result from the data relevant in October 2018 from some buildings of Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology.

A PLC Channel Model for Home Area Networks

Smart meters (SMs) are key components of the smart grid (SG) which gather electricity usage data from residences and businesses. Home area networks (HANs) are used to support two-way communications between SMs and devices within a building such as appliances. This can be implemented using power line communications (PLCs) via home wiring topologies. In this paper, a bottom-up approach is designed and a HAN-PLC channel model is obtained for a split-phase power system which includes branch circuits, an electric panel with circuit breakers and bars, a secondary transformer and the wiring of neighboring residences. A cell division (CD) method is proposed to construct the channel model. Furthermore, arc fault circuit interrupter (AFCI) and ground fault circuit interrupter (GFCI) circuit breaker models are developed. Several HAN-PLC channels are presented and compared with those obtained using existing models.

Privacy and data security for grid‐connected home area network using Internet of Things

Sensors with IoT assistance provides secured communication and data integrity inside HAN. Energy reading and information flow from the smart grid, together with sensors, bring about a new perspective on energy management. This paper primarily investigates the secured data flow in HAN and assures data privacy of customers during critical and emergency operations. Data are made available in real time with minimum transit time delay. Devices are continuously monitored for vital and emergency services. This paper focuses on machine to machine data flow and packet delivery using IoT. It helps in making user's power consumption data available over the cloud and also in customised electronic devices in real-time. This research work showcases the requirements for developing a cost-effective IoT-HAN connected with smart grid for energy aware routing. The advanced design scheme helps to place sensors, and control gateway in a well-defined boundary, consuming less energy for data transfer and data processing. Data flow pattern and packet delivery rate is tested using both simulated and actual data from sensors and concentrators. The obtained results and flow pattern is evaluated using MATLAB and network simulator. The developed IoT-HAN setup is optimally helpful in secured data exchange among different connected devices inside HAN.

Bidirectional Relaying MMW Radio over Plastic Optical Fiber Systems in Home Area Networks

In this paper, we propose a novel home area networks (HAN) architecture using MMW radio-over-plastic optical fiber (MMW/RoPOF) to provide high-speed wireless connections to end users. The proposed HAN can support bidirectional half-duplex communication between any pair of mobile stations (MSs) thanks to the use of analog network coding in optical domain implemented at a center station (CS). We analyze the performance of an end-to-end communication link between two MSs under the impact of major physical impairments originated from both fiber and wireless links. The numerical results in terms of bit error rate (BER) and normalized throughput demonstrate that it is feasible to deploy MMW/RoPOF in HAN. In addition, useful information for the design of HAN can be obtained from this paper.