Final Report - ECE Users Pages

Final Report

Smart Home

ECE4007 Senior Design Project

Georgia Tech Lorraine

Steven Bellows

Matthew Marston

Kenneth Nolasco

Brian Sparrow

Submitted

April 18 th

, 2008

TABLE OF CONTENTS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ............................................................................................................ 2

1.

INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................... 3

1.1

Objective .......................................................................................................................... 3

1.2

Motivation ........................................................................................................................ 3

1.3

Background ...................................................................................................................... 4

2.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION AND GOALS ............................................................................. 4

3.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS .......................................................................................... 6

4.

DESIGN APPROACH AND DETAILS ................................................................................. 7

4.1

Design Approach .............................................................................................................. 7

4.1.1

Central Network Core ................................................................................................... 8

4.1.2

Media System ............................................................................................................. 11

4.1.3

Security ....................................................................................................................... 14

4.1.4

Environmental Systems .............................................................................................. 14

4.1.5

User Interface ............................................................................................................. 19

4.1.6

Critical Path Items ...................................................................................................... 24

4.2

Codes and Standards ...................................................................................................... 25

4.3

Constraints, Alternatives, and Trade-offs ...................................................................... 25

5.

SCHEDULE, TASKS, AND MILESTONES ....................................................................... 27

6.

PROJECT DEMONSTRATION ........................................................................................... 28

7.

MARKETING AND COST ANALYSIS ............................................................................. 29

7.1

Marketing Analysis ........................................................................................................ 29

7.2 Cost Analysis ................................................................................................................. 30

8.

SUMMARY .......................................................................................................................... 32

9.

REFERENCES ...................................................................................................................... 34

1

Maison Intelligent (ECE4007)

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The Smart Home is a home automation system that allows for control over a home’s environmental, security, and media systems from a centralized network core with an easily accessible user interface. The environmental system can control the house’s lighting. The security system will constantly monitor for break-ins through windows and doors and give the user remote control over door locks. The media system will let users’ stream music from their computer while offering robust playback options. A user-friendly GUI allows for easy control of all these features. The integration of these everyday systems will give the average homeowner the control they desire within their home.

The system will cost in the range of $3000 and will require basic installation by the user but provides a fixed cost for home automation that is not currently commercially available.

Competitors offer comparable modular products but multiple purchases, complex installation, and technically advanced implementation is required for the same functionality as the proposed

Smart Home system. This makes competitors options not financially or technically viable for the average homeowner. For this reason, the Smart Home product will be marketed directly towards private homeowners and holds an advantage over its competitors in its ease of use. The project that the design team will be building is a Smart Home prototype and will have functionality comparable to the finished product on a smaller scale.

Some features still need to be refined before the prototype enters production.

Temperature reading and control functionality will be added to the environmental system.

Additional lights will be programmed to be controlled by the network core. Further music formats will be supported by the media player. Additional security components, such as motion detectors, may be implemented as well to increase marketability.

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Smart Home

1. INTRODUCTION

In a recent study conducted by the Continental Automated Buildings Association, 67% percent of homeowners polled expressed interest in the features a Smart Home could offer [1].

The Smart Home presents a viable method of joining disparate systems into a series of streamlined processes to increase home security, connectivity, and ease of life.

1.1 Objective

The Smart Home is designed to unify the various systems in a house and allow their control from a single, central location. Existing appliances can have much greater potential if they are designed to work in tandem. Intelligent control and manipulation of these components can create new and exciting features which are attractive to the average home owner. The modularity of the products will allow for easier installation into the central network than currently available products. The Smart House targets private homeowners who can use the technology to improve the entertainment, environmental, and security aspects of their home.

1.2 Motivation

There are many home automation solutions on the market, but none of the alternatives effectively address a simple one time purchase approach to intelligent home control. This one time purchase approach provides an extra level of comfort for the user while not sacrificing functionality and requiring minimal technical assistance.

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1.3 Background

There are various commercially available products in the home automation industry that perform functions similar to the Smart Home system. However, there are no systems that conveniently integrate the aforementioned house systems in one product. Instead, the buyer must purchase and integrate the system, which often requires significant technical knowledge.

Furthermore, most commercially available products integrate their products using a wireless network instead of power line technology. This leads to decreased network security and increased hassle for installation.

Smartlabs Technology manufactures a product named INSTEON that is comparable to the Smart Home system [2]. This technology uses both wireless and X-10 power line communication technologies to integrate various products together into a home automation network [3]. However, while INSTEON performs all of the functions of the Smart Home system, the buyer must purchase and integrate all of the functionality that he or she may want. The buyer must therefore have a technical background, or be able to pay a developer to integrate these systems into a convenient user interface. It is the ease-of-use and centralized design that makes the Smart Home system different from INSTEON and more attractive to the average homeowner.

2. PROJECT DESCRIPTION AND GOALS



Central network core



Light and temperature control



Home security monitoring system



Multizone audio



User-friendly interface

4


The goal of the Smart Home project is to integrate lighting, temperature, media, and security systems into a central interface. This will give the users the ability to control light and temperature levels throughout the home while streaming audio to multiple zones and monitoring their house’s security system. This functionality will be controlled by a GUI located on the user’s personal computer. The product will include all necessary hardware and software for simple, unassisted user installation and use.

The actual prototype built addressed many of these goals. The system was able to control lighting environment, successfully playback media stored on a hard drive, control an electronic lock, and monitor for break-ins into the house. Some features, however, were not fully developed.

Single zone audio was implemented instead of multizone due to time considerations.

Temperature control in the environmental system was also dropped due to insufficient time and resources for development. Temperature sensing is experiencing bugs in the system and has not yet been integrated into the Smart Home. Debugging is in progress for this issue but is yet to be resolved.

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3. TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Aspect of Design

Gradient of Dimmer Switch

Table 1. Technical Design Specifications

Desired Design Specification

30 increments

Climate Control Accuracy

Type of Electronic Lock

+/- 1 degrees

12V Mortise Lock w/ electric door strike

Minimum Data Transfer Rate

Serial Communication Specs

128 Kb/s for music, 4800 bps

Baud Rate

Met

4800 bps Baud, no parity, 8 data Met bits, 1 stop bit

1 Zone Met Number of Zones with

Independent Music

Voltage Requirements

Actual Specifications

22 Increments

N/A

Met

Current Requirements

Window Break-in Detection

Accuracy

220V, 50 Hz Met

500mA on lock, 130mA on alarm Met

100% accuracy Met

Minimum Central Processor

Speed

USB Pin Voltage

800MHz

3.2 V / 0 V

Met

Met


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4. DESIGN APPROACH AND DETAILS

4.1 Design Approach

The Smart House system contains five separate components. The heart of the design lies in the central network core, which will control all of the other aspects of the house based on user input. The environmental system will control the lighting in the house. The physical security system will control an electronic lock and monitor for break-ins. The media system will compile a list of songs from the computer hard drive and play them over a single set of speakers. The central network communicates with the lighting via a serial connection. The items in the security system are attached to I/O pins on an external board, which in turn is connected to the computer through USB. A graphical user interface linked to the central network core will allow user control over the entire system. The design is shown in Figure 1:


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Figure 1: Smart Home System Diagram

4.1.1 Central Network Core

The central network core is concerned with the manipulation and flow of data to and from the peripheral systems. The core was implemented with a generic computer, and the computer contains C++ programs designed to set up and maintain the necessary system interfaces.

The security system is connected to the central core by both USB and copper wire. The central network core sends 2 bytes of data directly to an ActiveWire USB board over a USB connection, utilizing drivers provided by ActiveWire, Inc. The ActiveWire board contains 40 pins, 16 of which are dedicated to I/O, numbered I/O 0 through I/O 15. When outputting, the

8


ActiveWire board looks at the individual bits of the 2 byte input data and changes the corresponding I/O pins voltage to 3.2V or 0V for a 1 or 0 respectively [4].

Figure 2: ActiveWire Pin Map [4]

When reading in data, a 3.2V value on a pin will result in a 1 in the corresponding bit in the 2 bytes of read data generated by the ActiveWire board. The computer uses these pins as switches to control the components of the security system.

The lock is attached to I/O 0 (pin 11), the sensor is attached to I/O 1 (pin 13), and the alarm is attached to I/O 3 (pin 15). Consequently, bits 0, 1, and 3 in the 2 byte data buffer sent to and from the computer correspond to the lock, sensor, and alarm respectively. The program controls the lock and alarm by setting the values of bits 0 and 3. The program reads in values from bit 1. A value of 1 indicates a break-in has occurred, and the program will automatically activate the alarm. After the break-in, the user will have to reset the alarm.

9


Figure 3: Security Communication Flow Chart

The central network core communicates with the lighting via X10 protocol. The computer first sends data from the RS232 COM1 port over a serial cable to the X10 module. The

X10 module, which is plugged into the wall, sends the data to the X10 lighting communications through a power line transmission. The code used to initialize the serial port was built off of examples given online [5]. The specific coding of the serial data is governed by the X10 protocol

[6]. The specifics of the serial coding and handshaking and the power line transmissions are covered in the Environmental System section. The temperature system is still in design, but once implemented the network core is planned to read the temperature data from an Altera FPGA board over a USB connection with Altera-provided USB drivers.

10


The media system is implemented on the computer itself, so there is no physical interface between it and the network core. The processed music data uses just a standard audio cable to move to the speakers.

4.1.2 Media System

The media system in the smart house will be designed to read music data from a single music source, such as an Apple iPod, and deliver those signals to two different “zones” in the house, represented by two separate sets of speakers. The goal of the project is to implement multi-zone audio functionality, where two separate songs can be relayed simultaneously by the central network core to two different zones.

The media system in the Smart House currently implements single-zone audio. Music mp3 files are read from the computer’s internal hard drive and processed. It is then sent from the computer’s audio jack over an audio cable to an external speaker to be played. The whole process requires two main steps.

The central network core first compiles a list of available songs using a class called

FileSearch. The music mp3’s are stored in a dedicated folder on the network core computer’s hard drive. The pathname of this folder is passed through to a FileSearch object. The FileSearch object then creates a string array and stores the name of each song in the dedicated folder into the array. Accessor functions then allow other programs to extract the array of song names and the size of the array.

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Figure 4: File Search Flow Chart

The next step is to decode the mp3 files and play them over the speakers. This is accomplished through the use of FMOD 3 music and sound system [7]. The FMOD 3 music API allows for a program to open and play several audio formats, including mp3. The sound engine also includes several functions to manipulate the song’s playback.

In the program, an FMOD mp3 stream object first has to be created. A song is selected by the user from the compiled list, and the name is passed as a parameter through the

FSOUND_Stream_Open function, which then loads the song into the mp3 stream object. From here, the user’s inputs are used to call individual FSOUND functions to alter the playback of the mp3 song to the user’s liking.

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Figure 5: Mp3 Playback Flow Chart

The media system can be expanded upon in future versions of the Smart House as well.

For now, the media system only reads songs with an mp3 format, but the program can be expanded to accept other formats as well, such as .wav files. The program can also be changed to look for songs in multiple folders throughout a computer’s hard drives, and even load songs from certain music players that act as external drives when attached to the computer itself. The development of these features requires only some more time for proper implementation into the software.

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4.1.3 Security

The prototype for the Smart Home security system will simulate three of the system’s most important features. An automatic door lock is used to simulate access control for the home, and a window break detector simulates intrusion detection. In conjunction with the window break detector, a siren will work with the window break detector to provide a response and alert functionality to the system. Each of these three devices is controlled by a USB control board.

The USB board is the interface between the security devices and the network core and allows for both input and output of instruction to and from the board. The specific pins on the USB board that is used for the security system include pin 7 for ground, pin 11 to control the lock, pin 13 to control the window break detector, and pin 15 to control the siren.

The automatic lock is an electric door strike that requires a 12 VDC power supply to unlock. The lock is normally locked when the not powered so the lock will automatically lock when power is removed. The 12VDC power supply is used in series with a 3.3V relay to supply the power to the lock. The relay can close the lock circuit to open the lock and open the circuit to close the lock. The USB board is used to control the relay and is in turn controlled by the network core.

The window break detector is connected to pin 13 of the USB board as an input. When a window break is detected, the window break detector acts a closed switch and sends a short voltage pulse to the USB board. Because there is no way to manually trigger this voltage pulse without breaking the glass that the window break detector is installed onto, a simulated test is used to show the functionality of the window detector. The window detector can be tested by manually closing and opening the circuit within the window break detector. A 3.2 VDC is

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connected in series with the window break detector and then the window break detector is connected to the USB board also in series. A window break is simulated by forcing the window break detector to close its internal circuit momentarily and then opening it. During the time period that the circuit is closed, the USB board will detect the 3.2 VDC that is connected to it.

The network core will detect the 3.2 VDC signal and change to a window broken state. A pull down resistor connected to ground is being used to reset the window break detector when the circuit is opened.

Figure 6: Security System Schematic

Finally, the siren is connected in series with the USB board pin 15. Typically the siren uses a 12 VDC power source to produce a 220 dB siren, but for the prototype, the USB board will provide a 3.2 VDC directly to the siren instead. The significant drop in power produces a

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much quieter sound. This gives the prototype the advantage of producing a sound soft enough to be demonstrated indoors. The siren can be reconnected to a 12 VDC power supply if the full 220 dB sound is needed. The siren is activated when the network core detects a window break and switches to a window broken state. The user is also given the ability to manually turn off the siren from the GUI interface after the siren has been activated.

4.1.4 Environmental Systems

The environmental system consists of two independent systems, lighting and temperature.

The lighting system has been successfully designed, tested, and implemented while the temperature system has been designed but is still being debugged in testing.

The lighting system consists of a computer interface, a dimmer module, and the end light.

The X-10 power line communication protocol was chosen for this project for the lighting communication because it minimizes installation by using a home’s existing power lines to communicate. The lighting system is constructed as shown in figure 7.

Network

RJ-9

Core

RS-232

RJ-11 PLC

X-10 CM11a

Computer Interface

Power Line

PLC

X-10 RPL

Light Module

Light

Figure 7: Lighting System Schematic

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The network core sends commands to the controllable lights by interfacing with the

CM11a module. The CM11a then converts these commands into X-10 protocol power line communication (PLC). This protocol command signal is filtered out of the normal house power signal and the command is processed by the X-10 RPL module. The light fixture is plugged into this light module and the power to the light is regulated by the module, giving the module full control capability over the light. The control capability includes on, off, and dim functionality for any incandescent bulb 60-300W or any halogen lamp up to 150W.

The communication between the network core and the CM11a module must follow the

X-10 protocol for developers [6]. This protocol is necessary as the commands sent over the power line must be regulated in order to allow for system extensibility. Therefore, the RPL light module will only know how to respond to certain commands so the network core must send the commands in the required format. This protocol also outlines the data flow back and forth and the checksums that take place between the network core and the CM11a. This information is to lengthy to include in this report so the design team recommends reading this protocol and referencing the lighting system source code available on the website.

The temperature system is not fully functional in the Smart Home prototype. The designed system senses temperature from the National Semiconductor LM76 IC and transmits it via USB protocol to the network core to be displayed on the GUI. This system is displayed in figure 8. The data is read from the LM76 chip via an I

2

C bus interface [8]. The bus was implemented using synthesized hardware and software on the Altera DE2 Development Board.

Using the OpenCores I

2

C bus master core, the bus master was implemented on the DE2 board by the use of the Quartus design environment and the verilog hardware design language [9]. This

17


core is available on the project website along with the verilog source files and Quartus design files.

Figure 8: Temperature System Schematic

The OpenCores hardware is controlled by C software embedded on the DE2 NIOS processor core. The software implements the commands needed in order for the synthesized hardware to send the needed protocols over the I

2

C bus from the Altera board to read temperature from the LM76 chip. This communication is standardized and is available on the

OpenCores website as well as in the Phillips I

2

C standard. This software was implemented into the Smart Home system by altering software garnered on the Altera NIOS forum [10]. For details regarding the software please refer to the source code available on the project website.

Further understanding may be gained from the OpenCores I 2 C website.

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As mentioned earlier, the temperature system is still experiencing bugs in implementation and has not yet been realized in the Smart Home system. This error is still being researched but stems from the LM76 not sending the necessary acknowledgements to the Altera board upon a read request. The error is being researched by the design team and seems to be a hardware issue.

Further testing is needed to isolate the error but the error has been documented fully on the project website and in the source code.

The lighting system is fully designed and implemented into the Smart Home system and in further prototype cycles may be extended to more lighting modules, but proof of concept has been demonstrated. The temperature system must be debugged so that sensing capabilities may be integrated into the Smart Home system. This must be done before bringing the product to market. Further, temperature controlling capabilities shall be implemented in later prototype designs and the sensing and controlling capabilities shall be incorporated into a convenient thermostat environment.

4.1.5 User Interface

The user interface is programmed fully in the Visual Studio 2005 C++ programming environment with Qt Gui 4.3.4 integration [11, 12]. The C++ programming language was chosen for its object-oriented programming, classes, and use of pointers and addresses. Qt Gui, or QT, was chosen to aid in the design and implementation process of the GUI due to its large predefined classes and member variables that simplify and streamline many of the processes inside the GUI. All coding was personally developed, excepting automation of .rc and .moc files.

The Main Window of the interface (see Fig. 9) contains 3 push buttons to its child dialog windows, Lighting, Media, and Security. Also, it displays and updates the current time and date

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in the upper right corner. An optional LCD display is inserted for possible future implementation of a temperature sensor reading and additional space was allocated for additional expansion. The Lighting Window contains two push buttons for turning the light/s off or on as well as a slider to manually set the lighting to a desired value. The LCD box displays the current light intensity setting. The Media Window contains a song list that is populated from an in-code specified directory. These songs can then be selected and played, paused, stopped, or tracked to a desired position using the bottom slider bar. A volume slider with an LCD display box is also added to modify the volume of the media player. The previous song or next song can automatically be selected and played using their respective buttons. Finally, a progress bar showing the position and percentage played of the current song is updated regularly each second.

The Security Window contains a button to open the lock on a five second timer before it locks it again, with an info box listing the current status. Also, a button for disabling the alarm is implemented. Lastly, due to information that would be destroyed otherwise, a button is available to hide the window from the user’s view until the Security Window is called again. The complete GUI design is shown in figure 9.

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Main Window

Lighting Window

Media Player Window

Figure 9: GUI Interface

Security Window


21

While the GUI is fully functional with all base functions and many added for ease of use, others can be added to further improve its overall functionality, such as interfacing a file folder selection menu for the Media Window’s song list. Also, the temperature sensing capability has been added to the GUI environment and should be easily integrated upon the temperature system completion.

Figure 10 displays the software’s chain of events and associated files.


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Figure 10: GUI Software Chain

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4.1.6 Further Development

Several features described in the project proposal were unable to be implemented, mostly due to time concerns. The environmental system was originally intended to read in temperature data from the LM76 IC and send this data to the network core. This data would then be displayed in the GUI to give real time temperature readings to the user. But, difficulties in I 2 C bus implementation using the Altera DE2 board have hindered the implementation of this functionality. Currently, the I 2 C bus hardware is implemented on the FPGA and bus master software is running on the synthesized hardware. However, the signals are not interfacing with the LM76 IC as expected and are so far unable to read the data stored in the IC’s internal registers. Debugging is currently being performed but due to time constraints this system will not be operational for the project demonstration.

The media system originally was set to incorporate multi-zone audio, where separate signals were sent to different speakers via USB. However, the extreme amount of time and work required for researching and coding USB data transmission necessitated a switch to single-zone audio, where music is sent over a standard audio cable to a single speaker. If further time is allowed, multi-zone functionality may be able to be implemented in a future product.

Many other features can be added to future Smart Home products, given enough time and resources. The security system could be expanded to include motion sensors and noise detection units, while the environmental system could include some temperature controlling functions. The media system can be further developed to recognize other file formats besides .mp3, such as .wav. The GUI can be improved upon in aesthetics and functionality, in order to incorporate these new features.

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4.2 Codes and Standards

The most relevant standard to the design is the USB standard [13]. Since data is transmitted to and from the systems over USB ports and wires, it is important that the hardware design and software solutions work with existing USB protocols. Since the software application running on the central network core is written in C++ on a Windows operating system, it was also important to use the software standards given in the Windows Development Kit when coding USB interface functions.

The power line communication technology X-10 has been an industry standard for fifteen years and was the logical choice for the Smart Home communication protocol [14]. This protocol uses a home’s existing power network to communicate data to devices plugged into the house’s power grid. The end appliances, the lights in the Smart Home design, must interface with this protocol. This was achieved by using existing X-10 compliant products for a computer as well as the lighting interface. The use of the CM11a Computer Interface brought up another needed standard, the use of the RS-232 serial communication standard [15]. The lighting control software needed to use the Windows Development Kit to follow this standard as well as the developer’s standard for X-10 program developers [6].

Although the temperature system has not been successfully implemented, the system employs the I

2

C bus standard [8]. With this in mind, the temperature system must be designed to match this serial communication protocol and this bus is still in the implementation phase.

Because this system will be employed within a home and use the power grid, it is important that the system comply with the National Electronic Code [16]. All components used have been approved for this use.

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4.3 Constraints, Alternatives, and Trade-offs

The largest constraint in the Smart House project was time. The Smart House has the potential to incorporate various features to expand its functionality and scope. However, implementing many of these features requires large amounts of research and troubleshooting, which would require more time than available in the semester.

Using wireless communication between the various components of the system versus a wired connection was one of the more strongly-considered alternatives. Wireless communication would allow for easier modification of a smart house. However, designing such a system would require a substantial amount of time in researching wireless protocols and data transfers without error. Furthermore, the use of existing power lines for communication purposes through X10 decreases the amount of installation required by the customer. Due to the time constraint, the designers decided to first focus on building a system with a working wired connection, and then afterwards to research wireless capabilities if time permits.

The programming was implemented in C++ over Java because of the designers’ experience with C++. The decision to program the GUI in C++ was made to ease integration of the GUI and the network core application. Both the network core and GUI programming were performed in a Windows environment instead of a Linux environment, due to the designers’ greater familiarity with Windows.

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5. SCHEDULE, TASKS, AND MILESTONE


Figure 11: GANTT Chart

.

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6. PROJECT DEMONSTRATION

The demonstration of the final product will take place in the Secure Networks and Optics

Laboratory, room 107, Georgia Tech Lorraine. The demonstration is scheduled for April 18 th

.

The features of the environmental, media, and security system will be displayed, along with a

GUI that controls each system.

For the first part of the demonstration, one member of the team will initiate and display the interface and controls for the individual components. Using the GUI, the team member will open the lighting section. There he will demonstrate how to turn on, off, dim, and brighten a light over X10 using the buttons provided. Then, one member of the team will setup and activate the alarm system and window sensors. The sensor typically sends a quick pulse when the window it is attached to is broken. Instead of breaking glass, we will simulate the sensor’s signal by physically shifting the sensor from side to side, which opens and closes a circuit to a 3.2V power supply. The signal from the sensor will cause the alarm to trigger and the GUI will register and show a break-in has occurred. The team member will also demonstrate the ability of the system to remotely lock doors, using a button in the GUI. Another team member will show the system’s capabilities for streaming mp3 files to a speaker. The team member will select a song from a list compiled from a dedicated music folder in the computer. They will then show the media system’s playback manipulation capabilities by playing, stopping, pausing, fast-forwarding, rewinding, and setting the volume of the song. Previous song and next song buttons will also be shown to cycle through the songs in the compiled song list.

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7. MARKETING AND COST ANALYSIS

7.1 Marketing Analysis

The main market for the Smart Home system is the homeowners market. The marketing plan for the system centers on highlighting the system’s ease-of-use, convenient setup, and functionality. A market has also been identified for home automation for home-based healthcare for the elderly but this market will need to be explored in future product releases with needed functional variations [17]. Residential contractors have also expressed interest in adding home automation and intelligent home systems into homes at the time of construction to decrease implementation cost and increase the attractiveness of a new home [1]. Future releases and alterations to the system will be needed to move into this identified market as home developers will need to be contacted and worked with in order to design a system that meets their needed functionality.

The most comparable product to the Smart Home system is the INSTEON system [2].

This system integrates the X-10 communication technology used in the Smart Home system as well as a custom wireless protocol to increase functional performance between components.

INSTEON is not a “box set” system like the Smart Home system and requires the separate purchase of all peripheral items. The user must then integrate all of these systems into expensive central interfaces using developer’s kits. These kits are well beyond the technical scope of the average homeowner, limiting INSTEON’s target market.

The Zigbee Alliance is the largest and most powerful player in the intelligent home controller market, but the Alliance relies on custom wireless technology [18]. While the Zigbee custom protocol does allow for easier installation, there are still few ways to build fully

29


interfaced systems without using developer’s kits or hiring expensive technicians. The Smart

Home system provides maximum functionality and an easy user interface for one simple price and package. This easy setup separates the Smart Home system from the competitors and offers a simple, one-stop solution for the average persons home automation needs.

7.2 Cost Analysis

The table below shows a cost analysis of the parts to build the Smart Home prototype with security, lighting, temperature, and media functionality.

Table 2: Small Home Parts Cost

Part Description

Electric Door Strike 12V DC

Window Bug

Light Bulb + Fixture

X10 RPL Module

CM11A X10/Computer Interface

LM76 Temperature Sensor

Altera DE2 Development Board

Outdoor Siren

Solid State Relay

ActiveWire USB Board / Cable

Computer

Project Total

Quantity

Unit

Price Price

1 $30.00 $30.00

1 $10.00 $10.00

1 $15.00 $15.00

1 $30.00 $30.00

1 $50.00 $50.00

1 $5.00 $5.00

1 $270.00 $270.00

1 $15.00 $15.00

1 $15.00 $15.00

1 $65.00 $65.00

1 $400.00 $400.00

$905.00

Some of the above parts were readily available for use in the Smart Home system but the opportunity cost of using them has still been taken into account. For labor cost, each member worked a total of 8-10 hours a week. This work consisted mostly of individual research and development of individual parts. The group also worked together to build and troubleshoot the prototype as well as come up with the needed documentation. The project took approximately

30


10 weeks to complete at a standard engineering pay of $40.00/hour per engineer, leading to a total of 100 hours per engineer.

To perform cost analysis, the parts included in the Smart Home prototype will serve as an estimated standard package for the product with the exclusion of the FPGA as this functionality will be implemented through a custom printed circuit board in the field. Each unit will require two hours of production time and two hours for testing the product. The group anticipates that

4,000 product packages will be sold each year over a five year time period to homeowners. The project will cost $32,400 in development cost, $15 million in sales costs, and another $300,000 in estimated advertising costs, each to be amortized over the five year period.

A sales price per product of $3,000.00 will earn $490, a 16.43% profit, leading to a

$9.805 million profit over the five year period. Table 3 shows overall figures of total costs and profit.


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8. SUMMARY

Table 3: Overall Cost and Pricing

Development Cost (Non-recurring Cost)

Parts

Labor

Fringe Benefits, % of Labor

Subtotal

Total

Determination of Selling Price

Based upon:

$ 904.00

$ 16,000.00

$ 4,000.00

$ 20,904.00

11,497.20

$ 32,401.20

20000 Units

Parts Cost

Assembly Labor

Testing Labor

Total Labor

Fringe Benefits, % of Labor

Subtotal

Subtotal, Input Costs

Sales & Marketing Expenses

Warranty & Support Expense

Amortized Development Costs

Subtotal, All Costs

Profit

Selling Price

$ 1,000.00

$ 15.00

$ 15.00

$ 30.00

$ 7.50

$ 1,037.50

570.63

$ 1,608.13

$ 750.00

$ 150.00

$ 1.62

$ 2,509.75

$ 490.25

$ 3,000.00

Total Revenue

Total Profit

$60,000,000.00

$9,805,098.80

16.34%

The product is currently functional and ready for demonstration. Many of the initial goals and objectives outlined in the project proposal were met: the prototype Smart Home is able to control lighting levels, control locks and alarms while monitoring for a break in, and play mp3 songs with sufficient playback control. Furthermore, an accessible and user-friendly GUI is able to perform all these tasks.

Some features presented in the project proposal had to be scaled back or dropped.

Temperature monitoring, while almost complete in design, could not be implemented due to time constraints. Multi-zone audio was also dropped due programming issues and multiplexing of

32


USB commands and communications. If the prototype were allowed more development time, these features would have been integrated to the basic functionality added to the Smart Home.

Time considerations were the largest factor hampering the development of features for the Smart Home. Due to changes in the Smart House design that arose as the original design’s feasibility was explored, feature development had to be backtracked. Consequently, a better approach to the project would have been to put more time into researching the feasibility of the proposed design before investing too much time in researching extensible features.

The Smart Home prototype is adaptable, and future versions of the product can include many features suited towards improving daily household life. Extension of the current functionality, such as adding more lights or supporting more audio formats, should not require much time. Brand new features mentioned above, such as motion sensor, security, or temperature reading, also need only minimal extra development. Other features, like multi-zone audio, will require more serious effort and should be evaluated carefully before added to any future versions of the Smart Home. However, due to the volume of features which can be implemented with relative ease, the designers recommend the Smart Home to go through one or more additional prototype cycles before production, in order to further improve its functionality and market appeal.

33


9. REFERENCES

[1] Internet Home Alliance. Research Review, Topic: "State of the Connected Home Market

Study 2008." Continental Automated Buildings Association, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada,

Jan. 2008.

[2] Smarthome Technology Technical Staff, Insteon, the Details , Smarthome Technolgy,

2005.

[3] Smart Home Systems, "How X10 Works," SmartHomeUSA.com

, para. [Online].

Available: http://www.smarthomeusa.com/info/x10theory [Accessed Jan. 22, 2008].

[4] ActiveWire Inc., “ActiveWire-USB Specifications,” ActiveWire Inc . [Online].

Available: http://www.activewireinc.com/docs/usb_info.htm

. [Accessed Mar. 3, 2008].

[5] The Code Project, “Serial Communication,” The Code Project . [Online].

Available: http://www.codeproject.com

. [Accessed Apr. 1, 2008].

[6] SmartHome, “Interface Communication Protocol,” CM11a Developers Interface Protocol.

Available: http://www.smarthome.com/manuals/protocol.txt

. [Accessed Mar. 15, 2008].

[7]

Firelight Technologies, “FMOD,”

FMOD , [Online]. Available: http://www.fmod.org/index.php/fmod . [Accessed Mar. 5, 2008].

[8] NXP, “I 2 C Standard,” I 2 C Standard. Available: http://www.nxp.com/news/backgrounders/bg_esc9727/index.html

.

34


[9] R. Herveille, “I

2

C Controller Core: Overview,” OpenCores , [Online]. Available: http://www.opencores.org/projects.cgi/web/i2c/overview . [Accessed Apr. 3, 2008].

[10] NIOS Forum, “How to program use OpenCores I2C Master core in n2,” Altera , [Online].

Available: http://forum.niosforum.com/forum/lofiversion/index.php/t3583.html

.

[Accessed Apr. 5, 2008].

[11] Microsoft, Visual Studio 2008 . [Download]. Available: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/enus/vstudio/default.aspx

.

[12] Trolltech, Qt Eclipse Integration for C++ . [Download]. Available: http://trolltech.com/developer/downloads/qt/eclipse-integration-download .

[13]

Compaq, Microsoft, Intel, Lucent, Microsoft, NEC, Philips, “Universal Serial Bus

Specifications,” USB 2.0 Standard, 2000.

[14] X-10 Pro Technical Staff, X-10 Communications Protocol and Power Line Interface , X-

10 Pro, 2005.

[15] Electronics Industries Association, "EIA Standard RS-232-C Interface Between Data

Terminal Equipment and Data Communication Equipment Employing Serial Data

Interchange", August 1969.

[16] National Fire Protection Agency, “National Electric Code,” National Fire Protection

Agency . [Online]. Available: http://www.nfpa.org

. [Accessed Feb. 1, 2008].

35


[17] Vikramaditya R. Jakkula, Diane J. Cook, Gaurav Jain, "Prediction Models for a Smart

Home Based Health Care System," ainaw , pp. 761-765, 21st International Conference on

Advanced Information Networking and Applications Workshops (AINAW'07), 2007

[18]

Zigbee Alliance, “Products and Certification Overview,”

Zigbee Alliance . [Online].

Available: http://www.zigbee.org/en/certification/index.asp

. [Accessed Feb. 2, 2008].


36

Final Report - ECE Users Pages

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