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The revolution of Information Technology in our lives has started by changing the way we work and continued with the way we entertain, communicate, interact, learn and so on. The wave of digital change has long been at the doorstep of the home to revolutionize our living experience. The initial attempts to get inside with early home automation systems could not be very successful. Their complexity and price tags for the value they offered were not acceptable for the majority of households. The key was the wireless network connectivity that opened the door to change with the convenience of accessing data by any device from anywhere in the home. This convenience has fueled the proliferation of connected devices in the home and made Wi-Fi the preferred technology for home networking. The high bandwidth and QoS demand of advanced multimedia application is challenging the capacity of today's Wi-Fi networks, which is already constrained by the growing number of connected devices and interference of adjacent wireless networks. The potential of improvements on the network capacity is limited by the scarce resources in the conventional frequency bands of unlicensed spectrum. This thesis focused on 60 GHz radio technology to realize multi-gigabit wireless connectivity in home networks since it has a 5 GHz block of globally available bandwidth in the license-free spectrum. The substantial bandwidth comes with a price: heavy attenuation. Radio waves in the 60 GHz band can hardly penetrate through building walls, furniture and human bodies. Therefore, this thesis investigated 60 GHz technology for point-to-point communications in a single room and left the inter-room 60 GHz connectivity to researchers working on Radio-over-Fiber technology. We first characterized the 60 GHz channels in a typical living room environment and generated performance figures with physical layer simulations for several antenna configurations. The results clearly showed the critical importance of directional antennas for 60 GHz communications. In the next stage of the study, we evaluated the reliability of using reflections in maintaining 60 GHz link connectivity when the line-of-sight path is blocked. A large set of 3D ray tracing simulations with various human shadowing and different environment models were performed. Showing that reflections cannot provide fully reliable solution to link blockage, this thesis proposed the use of relaying to improve the quality and robustness of 60 GHz links in the home network. The performance of multiple relaying strategies and configurations was analyzed through analytical and ray tracing studies. The effective application of relaying depends on timely discovery of the neighbors in the network. To shorten the neighbor discovery time with directional antennas in a 60 GHz network, we proposed the Smart Neighbor Discovery strategy that utilizes the location information of the nodes. The inadequacy of current wireless technologies is not the only challenge facing the digital home. Heterogeneity has emerged as a prominent characteristic of the digital home with the increasing number and variety of applications, services and communication technologies supported by the connected devices. The lack of interoperability among these heterogeneous entities has given rise to virtual walls in the digital home by fragmenting it into isolated islands of technologies. This fragmentation in the digital home environment increases the complexity and cost of systems, services and applications while limiting the innovation and user adoption. We approached the fragmentation in the digital home environment at three tiers and proposed Three-tier Integration Model. In the first tier, we focused on the fragmentation in the home networking technologies and proposed the concept of HomeBox, which is a dedicated device with multiple network interfaces. HomeBox is envisioned to provide (I) an open computing platform where the user can deploy applications and services, (II) a communication gateway to bridge devices using different networking technologies, and (III) a coordinator and relaying node that can improve the connectivity of 60 GHz and other wireless technologies. In the second tier, we addressed the fragmentation in the application and service domain and proposed the concept of ADIOSS, which is a conceptual interoperability framework that uses semantic RESTful web services to integrate applications and services. In the third tier, we defined the fragmentation in the market level and proposed the concept of ApS House, which is a digital market place to distribute the applications and services to the home. The main objective of all the concepts in Three-Tier Integration Model is to simplify the application and service lifecycle from development to deployment and usage in the digital home environment. To conclude, we characterize the future digital home as a computing and networking platform that can seamlessly integrate applications and services and interconnect all types of network-enabled devices in On-and-Play fashion with required QoS guarantees. This thesis argues that 60 GHz wireless technology and the proposed Three-tier Integration Model can lower the barriers between this future vision and the current state of the digital home.

The revolution of Information Technology in our lives has started by changing the way we work and continued with the way we entertain, communicate, interact, learn and so on. The wave of digital change has long been at the doorstep of the home to revolutionize our living experience. The initial attempts to get inside with early home automation systems could not be very successful. Their complexity and price tags for the value they offered were not acceptable for the majority of households. The key was the wireless network connectivity that opened the door to change with the convenience of accessing data by any device from anywhere in the home. This convenience has fueled the proliferation of connected devices in the home and made Wi-Fi the preferred technology for home networking. The high bandwidth and QoS demand of advanced multimedia application is challenging the capacity of today's Wi-Fi networks, which is already constrained by the growing number of connected devices and interference of adjacent wireless networks. The potential of improvements on the network capacity is limited by the scarce resources in the conventional frequency bands of unlicensed spectrum. This thesis focused on 60 GHz radio technology to realize multi-gigabit wireless connectivity in home networks since it has a 5 GHz block of globally available bandwidth in the license-free spectrum. The substantial bandwidth comes with a price: heavy attenuation. Radio waves in the 60 GHz band can hardly penetrate through building walls, furniture and human bodies. Therefore, this thesis investigated 60 GHz technology for point-to-point communications in a single room and left the inter-room 60 GHz connectivity to researchers working on Radio-over-Fiber technology. We first characterized the 60 GHz channels in a typical living room environment and generated performance figures with physical layer simulations for several antenna configurations. The results clearly showed the critical importance of directional antennas for 60 GHz communications. In the next stage of the study, we evaluated the reliability of using reflections in maintaining 60 GHz link connectivity when the line-of-sight path is blocked. A large set of 3D ray tracing simulations with various human shadowing and different environment models were performed. Showing that reflections cannot provide fully reliable solution to link blockage, this thesis proposed the use of relaying to improve the quality and robustness of 60 GHz links in the home network. The performance of multiple relaying strategies and configurations was analyzed through analytical and ray tracing studies. The effective application of relaying depends on timely discovery of the neighbors in the network. To shorten the neighbor discovery time with directional antennas in a 60 GHz network, we proposed the Smart Neighbor Discovery strategy that utilizes the location information of the nodes. The inadequacy of current wireless technologies is not the only challenge facing the digital home. Heterogeneity has emerged as a prominent characteristic of the digital home with the increasing number and variety of applications, services and communication technologies supported by the connected devices. The lack of interoperability among these heterogeneous entities has given rise to virtual walls in the digital home by fragmenting it into isolated islands of technologies. This fragmentation in the digital home environment increases the complexity and cost of systems, services and applications while limiting the innovation and user adoption. We approached the fragmentation in the digital home environment at three tiers and proposed Three-tier Integration Model. In the first tier, we focused on the fragmentation in the home networking technologies and proposed the concept of HomeBox, which is a dedicated device with multiple network interfaces. HomeBox is envisioned to provide (I) an open computing platform where the user can deploy applications and services, (II) a communication gateway to bridge devices using different networking technologies, and (III) a coordinator and relaying node that can improve the connectivity of 60 GHz and other wireless technologies. In the second tier, we addressed the fragmentation in the application and service domain and proposed the concept of ADIOSS, which is a conceptual interoperability framework that uses semantic RESTful web services to integrate applications and services. In the third tier, we defined the fragmentation in the market level and proposed the concept of ApS House, which is a digital market place to distribute the applications and services to the home. The main objective of all the concepts in Three-Tier Integration Model is to simplify the application and service lifecycle from development to deployment and usage in the digital home environment. To conclude, we characterize the future digital home as a computing and networking platform that can seamlessly integrate applications and services and interconnect all types of network-enabled devices in On-and-Play fashion with required QoS guarantees. This thesis argues that 60 GHz wireless technology and the proposed Three-tier Integration Model can lower the barriers between this future vision and the current state of the digital home.

In this paper, we develop a partner selection protocol for enhancing the network lifetime in cooperative wireless networks. The case-study is the cooperative relayed transmission from fixed indoor nodes to a common outdoor access point. A stochastic bivariate model for the spatial distribution of the fading parameters that govern the link performance, namely the Rician K-factor and the path-loss, is proposed and validated by means of real channel measurements. The partner selection protocol is based on the real-time estimation of a function of these fading parameters, i.e., the coding gain. To reduce the complexity of the link quality assessment, a Bayesian approach is proposed that uses the site-specific bivariate model as a-priori information for the coding gain estimation. This link quality estimator allows network lifetime gains almost as if all K-factor values were known. Furthermore, it suits IEEE 802.15.4 compliant networks as it efficiently exploits the information acquired from the receiver signal strength indicator. Extensive numerical results highlight the trade-off between complexity, robustness to model mismatches and network lifetime performance. We show for instance that infrequent updates of the site-specific model through K-factor estimation over a subset of links are sufficient to at least double the network lifetime with respect to existing algorithms based on path loss information only., This work has been submitted to IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications in August 2011

Two completely different approaches for a Gigabit Ethernet compliant stream transmission over 50m of 1mm PMMA SI-POF have been experimentally demonstrated and are compared in this paper. The first solution is based on a commercial RC-LED transmission and a careful optimization of the physical layer architecture, realized during the POF-PLUS EU Project. The second solution exploits the performance of an edge-emitting laser at the transmitter side in order to avoid any sort of electrical equalization at the receiver side., {"references":["O. Ziemann, J. Krauser, P. Zamzow, and W. Daum, POF Handbook: \"Optical Short Range Transmission Systems\", 2nd ed. New York:\nSpringer, 2008.","A. Nespola, S. Abrate, R. Gaudino, C. Zerna, B. Offenbeck, and N.\nWeber, \"High-speed communications over polymer optical fibers for\nin-building cabling and home networking\", IEEE Photon. J., vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 347-358, Jun. 2010.","S. Abrate, A. Nespola, S. Straullu, P. Savio, R. Gaudino, A. Antonino,\nC. Zerna, B. Offenbeck, N. Weber, \"Gigabit home networking with\n1mm PMMA fibers\", IEEE International Conference on Transparent\nOptical Networks 2010.","Daesun Oh and K.K Parhi, \"Low Complexity Design of High Speed\nParallel Decision Feedback Equalizers\", Proceedings of the IEEE 17th\nInternational Conference on Application-specific Systems, Architectures and Processors (ASAP 2006), Colorado, September 11-13, 2006.","IEEE 802.3-2008 Part 3: \"Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision\nDetector (CSMA/CD) access method and Physical Layer\nspecifications\".","A. Nespola, S. Straullu, P. Savio, D. Zeolla, J. Ramirez Molina, S. Abrate, R. Gaudino, \"A new physical layer capable of record gigabit transmission over 1mm step-index polymer optical fiber\", J. Lightw.\nTechnol., vol. 28, no. 20, pp. 2944-2950, Oct. 15, 2010."]}

Current QoS solutions for IP networks are usually based on traffic classification and need to be supported by every device in the end-to-end path to be effective. This is relatively expensive for home networks. Alternative techniques have been proposed that require end-user services to pragmatically adapt their properties to the actual condition of the network. For this, the condition of the network needs to be known in real time. In this article we demonstrate a new method to probe the path capacity between a server and a client in a home network or any other best-effort small-scale IP network. The tool requires adaptation of the server side only, is non-intrusive, has a short measurement time, does not require pre-knowledge of the link-layer network topology, and is accurate enough to make educated predictions about the admission of IPTV services and the like. © 2010 IEEE.

The wireless personal area network (WPAN) is an emerging wireless technology for future short range indoor and outdoor communication applications. The IEEE 802.15.3 medium access control (MAC) is proposed to coordinate the access to the wireless medium among the competing devices, especially for short range and high data rate applications in home networks. In this paper we use analytical modeling to study the performance analysis of WPAN (IEEE 802.15.3) MAC in terms of throughput, efficient bandwidth utilization, and delay with various ACK policies under error channel condition. This allows us to introduce a K-Dly-ACK-AGG policy, payload size adjustment mechanism, and Improved Backoff algorithm to improve the performance of the WPAN MAC. Performance evaluation results demonstrate the impact of our improvements on network capacity. Moreover, these results can be very useful to WPAN application designers and protocol architects to easily and correctly implement WPAN for home networking.

Current QoS solutions for IP networks are usually based on traffic classification and need to be supported by every device in the end-to-end path to be effective. This is relatively expensive for home networks. Alternative techniques have been proposed that require end-user services to pragmatically adapt their properties to the actual condition of the network. For this, the condition of the network needs to be known in real time. In this article we demonstrate a new method to probe the path capacity between a server and a client in a home network or any other best-effort small-scale IP network. The tool requires adaptation of the server side only, is non-intrusive, has a short measurement time, does not require pre-knowledge of the link-layer network topology, and is accurate enough to make educated predictions about the admission of IPTV services and the like. © 2010 IEEE.

Dissertação de Mestrado em Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores A evolução da banda larga e a introdução de novos equipamentos especializados em determinado tipo de serviço exigem a adopção de soluções inovadoras que permitam uma gestão e configuração rápida e flexível de acordo com as necessidades específicas de cada equipamento e cliente. A recente convergência de diversos serviços (voz, dados, wireless e televisão) num mesmo canal de acesso (Triple Play e Quadruple Play) e a profusão de aplicações têm dificultado a gestão, segurança e garantia do QoS (Quality of Service) nas redes, provocando assim a procura de novas soluções. Garantir a configuração, integridade e despiste de casos de avaria, são nesta altura grandes desafios para os sistemas de suporte à operação dos operadores. A PT Inovação dispõe de um sistema, o Network Activator, que é responsável pela mediação entre os sistemas de suporte à operação e os equipamentos da rede. Este trabalho apresenta um módulo de gestão de equipamentos baseado no recente protocolo de gestão remoto CWMP (CPE WAN Management Protocol), com o objectivo de um dia vir a ser integrado à plataforma da PT Inovação. The broadband evolution and the new specialized equipment introduction at specific type of service require innovative solutions that enable management and fast and flexible configuration, according to the specific needs of each client and equipment. The recent convergence of various services (voice, data, wireless and television) in the same channel access (Triple Play and Quadruple Play), and the increase of the number of applications has hindered the management, security and QoS (Quality of Service) in data networks, thus causing a demand for new solutions. Ensure the configuration, integrity, and screening of cases of failure, are, at this time great challenges in the operation support systems of the operators. PT Inovação has a system, Network Activator, which is responsible for mediating between operation support systems and network equipment. This work presents a module equipment management based on recent remote management protocol CWMP (CPE WAN Management Protocol), with the aim of being able to be integrated into the platform of PT Inovação.

In this study, we apply a step-by-step approach for the identification of standards for home networking. We develop a classification and we use this classification to categorize sixty-four (sets of) standards. By developing this categorization, we have brought order to the chaos of home networking standards. © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

In this study, we apply a step-by-step approach for the identification of standards for home networking. We develop a classification and we use this classification to categorize sixty-four (sets of) standards. By developing this categorization, we have brought order to the chaos of home networking standards. © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Home computers and mobile telecommunication have brought necessary smart home building blocks, such as Ethernet and WLAN networks and various terminals, to every modern home. The amount of entertainment equipment with UPnP capabilities is increasing but most appliances cannot be networked without adding a network adapter. We have built a smart home demonstrator that combines unmodified commercial products, products with modified software, legacy products with miniature embedded network adapters, and our own appliances into an integrated network, using UPnP as the common language. User interfaces are offered via browsers or dedicated interfaces on various terminals, such as TV, portable game consoles and mobile phones.

This article describes a service-oriented solution framework designed for home environments. A pragmatic approach is developed to help integrate conventional home automation systems following the service oriented computing paradigm. We believe it is improbable that there will be a single dominant middleware for the home computing that would be right for different appliances. A number of middlewares have recently emerged and it is common knowledge that they haven't a sufficient degree of interoperability. Because of this, the authors show how the approach based on XML, Web services, and Internet protocols, provide a uniform and novel architecture to cope with the architecture complexity in a open standard way. Furthermore a converging layer is conceived to incorporate a high level abstraction by an XML-based home automation language.

This project deliverable carries out a significant number of technical studies on existing home networking technologies evaluating the main features. The main purpose of this document is to summarize the results of the evaluation of existing technologies that could be of interest to WSED (Web Services for Embedded Devices) architecture. The objective of this study has been to identify the focus and capabilities of these technologies in order to decide whether the project should use some of their ideas and solutions for inspiration. Examples of these technologies that could provide the main foundation are UPnP, Web Services, and Jini.

The LIGHT project aims at designing and developing a standard, service-oriented architecture for the next generation of embedded devices in order to render home networking easier and more effective for the end-user. LIGHT will exploit the Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) paradigm in a new domain, the home environment, proposing advanced and interoperable profiles for household appliances and devising solutions for the problems of overhead associated with hosting Web services on embedded systems.

The wireless token ring protocol (WTRP) is a novel medium access control (MAC) protocol for wireless local area networks (WLANs). In contrast with IEEE 802.11 networks, WTRP guarantees quality of service (QoS) in terms of bounded latency and reserved bandwidth, which are critical in many real-time applications. Compared to 802.11, WTRP improves efficiency by reducing the number of retransmissions due to collisions, and it is more fair as all stations use the channel for the same amount of time. Stations take turns transmitting and give up the right to transmit after a specified amount of time. WTRP is a distributed protocol that supports many topologies, as not all stations need to be connected to each other or to a central station. WTRP is robust against single node failures, and recovers gracefully from multiple simultaneous faults. WTRP is suitable for interaccess point coordination in ITS DSRC, safety-critical vehicle-to-vehicle communications, and home networking, and provides extensions to other networks and Mobile IP.

The Atmosphere Controller is an implementation of home networking technology that could make life at home a totally new experience. An atmosphere is created by combining light (intensity and colour), music and wallpaper projection. To find out if is this type of experience fits into everyday life of people, we studied the current experience of creating atmospheres by conducting interviews and probes studies in people's homes [5]. The same people were later invited to test the application in a Lab environment. Although the lab tests showed that the Atmosphere controller offers a positive sensorial experience further research should be conducted in a more realistic setting. © 2004 ACM.

The Future Home project has focused on specifying and implementing a wireless residential networking and gateway system. The main objective of the specified architecture is integration of heterogeneous wireless technologies, IPv6, and middleware for services. The project has studied many different smart home scenarios, and one central field of application is health and wellness management. in this paper, we provide a description of the future home technological concept and results from the user interviews about their opinions on different health related scenarios.

The purpose of this document is to describe selected security technologies and applications related especially to home networking environments. The focus is on Wireless Local Area Network technologies. The document defines the home environment and addresses related architectural issues. The security technologies are depicted from the viewpoint of different communication layers. Finally, aspects on authentication, wireless roaming, and remote access to home network are covered. An architecture enabling home access to a roaming user, as well as WLAN market possibilities, is also discussed.

The Atmosphere Controller is an implementation of home networking technology that could make life at home a totally new experience. An atmosphere is created by combining light (intensity and colour), music and wallpaper projection. To find out if is this type of experience fits into everyday life of people, we studied the current experience of creating atmospheres by conducting interviews and probes studies in people's homes [5]. The same people were later invited to test the application in a Lab environment. Although the lab tests showed that the Atmosphere controller offers a positive sensorial experience further research should be conducted in a more realistic setting. © 2004 ACM.

Various crucial multi-disciplinary issues have been investigated concerning residential gateway (RG) technology applicable in an unbundled telecommunications value chain. We find that the Calculating-with-Concepts method can be used to construct an unambiguous frame of reference for digital rights management and end-to-end security architectures. We also conclude that some types of RGs can perfectly act as explicitly configured or transparent proxy-caches at the lowest level of a caching hierarchy. Furthermore, we discovered that the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol seems attractive for remote RG configuration management. Finally, linking devices, services, and RG functionality via a user interface with intuitive object based metaphors can enhance the user experience significantly.

A remote residential control system enables home users to remotely manage devices at their homes. These devices may include energy management, security surveillance, household appliances, consumer electronics, etc. This system involves technologies in home automation, home networking, and interfacing a home network with external networks. However, lacking a single standard poses a big challenge to the design of such a system. This thesis proposed three methods of turning an IP Set-Top Box into a remote residential control platform. Additionally, future trends are discussed. Various technologies in the fields mentioned above are also examined. Ett system för fjärrstyrning av intelligenta hem (remote residential control system) är ett system som möjliggör för hemanvändare att på distans övervaka och styra utrustning i hemmet. Denna utrustning kan vara energiövervakning, säkerhetsutrustning, hushållsapparater, konsumentelektronik, etc. Det saknas dock en gemensam standard, vilket gör det till en stor utmaning att konstruera ett sådant system. I detta examensarbete föreslås tre sätt att göra en set-top box till en plattform för fjärrstyrning av intelligenta hem. Framtida trender diskuteras också. Olika tekniker inom nämnda områden undersöks[.]

Various crucial multi-disciplinary issues have been investigated concerning residential gateway (RG) technology applicable in an unbundled telecommunications value chain. We find that the Calculating-with-Concepts method can be used to construct an unambiguous frame of reference for digital rights management and end-to-end security architectures. We also conclude that some types of RGs can perfectly act as explicitly configured or transparent proxy-caches at the lowest level of a caching hierarchy. Furthermore, we discovered that the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol seems attractive for remote RG configuration management. Finally, linking devices, services, and RG functionality via a user interface with intuitive object based metaphors can enhance the user experience significantly.

DomoML is a mark-up language aimed at the definition of interoperability standard for domestic resources within the NICHE project (Natural Interaction in Computerised Home Environment). The project focuses on human language as a means for mediating user interaction with the home environment, enabling a user to control, query and program devices. Various heterogeneous components are going to take part in this architecture, and DomoML is the glue which allows them to be interfaced. It is a mark-up language intended to define a semantic layer on which novel value-added services (agents) can easily be built.

The purpose of this document is to describe selected security technologies and applications related especially to home networking environments. The focus is on Wireless Local Area Network technologies. The document defines the home environment and addresses related architectural issues. The security technologies are depicted from the viewpoint of different communication layers. Finally, aspects on authentication, wireless roaming, and remote access to home network are covered. An architecture enabling home access to a roaming user, as well as WLAN market possibilities, is also discussed.

Our research group has proposed UPnP Gateway technology as ALG (Application Level Gateway) in order to make devices connected to the different LANs (Local Area Network) interact. One problem with the UPnP Gateway is that it takes several seconds to discover a device on another LAN. One of the reasons for this is the multicast message from the process, which needs to create a new connection between gateways when the UPnP Gateway replies to the device search request from a device on the other LAN. In this paper, we propose as a solution to this problem a caching method to increase the speed of the UPnP Gateway for the device search request. We implement the prototype of the proposed method and verify that we improve the response time for the search procedure by using the caching method.

We developed and evaluated a home network and ambient intelligence prototype for wellness management and home automation applications. The evaluation was based on interviews and a user trial at a simulated home environment. This paper describes users’ attitudes towards ubiquitous computing technology at home, and especially what kind of applications they would prefer to use at home. We also aimed to gather qualitative information about what kind of user interfaces would be desired for using these applications. The study generated new ideas to develop the ubiquitous computing enabled home concept further.