Sensor platform - Monitoring and Reporting Systems
Within The Home Depot Smart Home, awareness of the current environmental conditions within in the house is important for enabling systems within the house to act in a smart manner. The sensor network within the house should be capable of interfacing with multiple sensor systems and provide communication with the sensors in a standard and reliable manner. Data regarding the current state of the house must be provided in a standard manner to all systems within the house such that any current or future system is capable of accessing the information in a useful manner. Finally, the data should be capable of being reported in a useful and flexible manner to both end users and necessary systems. The system to meet these criteria is an implementation of the Dallas One Wire system, which is interfaced to a standard SQL database for data storage. For the reporting system, a timed sensor polling system was implemented in C# which reads the data from the network and stores the results in a SQL database for report generation and general consumption.
The solution presented to solve this issue then is to provide a standard method through which all sensor data is stored and available for any system to access. Organizing the sensors as a separate system with a standard access protocol allows for any system which might desire the information to access the data for its own uses. Furthermore, centralizing as many sensor readings as possible in one source provides more potential for future innovation and control due to increased ease of gathering information about the indoor environment.
In order to meet these criteria, the One Wire network from Maxim IC was chosen. This system provides a straightforward and powerful network protocol through which multiple sensors can be polled and recorded. These systems are flexible and powerful, and with the additions of A/D converters designed to communicate via the One Wire network, and digital relays, the system will be capable of interfacing with any sensor available for the network. To read the data, a program was developed in C# which is capable of polling with the One Wire network and storing the data in a SQL database.
The One Wire network is a standard developed my Maxim IC for use in electronic sensor systems which can work in a wide range of systems. The network protocol is designed to allow multiple devices to run in parallel along a single data line, and can support several different types of useful sensors. The One Wire Network is hot pluggable, allowing devices to be added to a live system, and runs on RJ-14 cable or RJ-45 cable without complication. The network can also interface with a computer using several different adapters, which enables easy monitoring and storing of sensor readings from the network.
Another advantage of the One Wire network is the presence of unique identifiers and device information available in each device. Every device contains its own 64-bit unique identifier, name, description, and other information which makes identifying a new device on the network trivial. A device on the network can be located, identified, and read with very little coding.
The One Wire sensor network provides a reliable, accurate, and flexible sensor network for The Home Depot Smart Home. With this system, the condition of the indoor environment is easily accessible by all interested systems, and the system can be easily updated or extended in future considerations.
The direction of the sensor system in the future should include finalizing and fully documenting the Sensor Net program. It should also include consideration of the number and type of sensors to be installed in the sensor system, the distribution of sensors within The Home Depot Smart Home, and other possible uses for the sensor data.