International Journal of Computer Engineering and Applications, ICCSTAR-2016, Special Issue,

May.16

IoT FRAMEWORK FOR SMART HOME USING CLOUD

COMPUTING VIA OPEN SOURCE MOBILE PLATFORM
J.Rajalekshmi1, SivaSankari.G.G2
1
Student, Computer Science and Engineering, AMC College of Engineering, KA, India
2
Prof, Computer Science and Engineering, AMC College of Engineering, KA, India

ABSTRACT:

Internet of Things and Smart Homes are the research topics which are gaining more public
attention as they help us to create a comfortable living environment. Smart Home is the one
where the home benefits from the advent of automation and communication technologies to
create a smart environment which is more convenient for the users. One main goal of Smart
Home is to ease people’s lives by making the technology work for them. But the problem with
such smart systems is that they are dynamic, heterogeneous and complex. However such
systems can profit from the virtually boundless capabilities and resources of Cloud to
overcome such problems. Additionally Smartphone innovation is successful to the point that
individuals experience difficulty envisioning a day without them. With the integration of
Internet of Things, Cloud Computing and Smart phone Technology, we present a Smart
Home based on Cloud using IoT framework that uses an Android mobile to control the home
appliances from anywhere around the world. The framework is designed to be low cost,
scalable and easy to use. Also this system can be extended to various other applications like
smart buildings, healthcare just to mention a few of them.

Keywords: IoT, Cloud Computing, Smart Home, Smart Phone, Microcontroller

[1] INTRODUCTION
The Internet has turned into a worldwide wonder, which has changed the way individuals
conduct business, connect, and learn on a global scale. The Internet has altogether changed
lives worldwide and will keep on reshaping the way individuals live. We are entering to a new
era of ubiquity, Internet of Things in which new forms of communication between human and
things, and thing to thing will be realized [1]. Everything in the Internet of Things can be

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defined as an embedded computing device that can transmit and receive data over a network.
One main goal of linking the computing device to the Internet is to ease people’s lives by
making the technology to work for them [2].

Smart Home is a step towards Internet of Things where the users can remotely control
their home in different ways. For eg., one can switch on their Air conditioner remotely via
Internet using a smart phone to reduce the room temperature before arriving home [2]. A Smart
Home that can be remotely controlled via Internet can make things easier and also provide great
convenience for the users. In addition, such systems also provide security and safety for the
users. Developing such kind of applications are made easier with the rise of services provided
by the Cloud Computing Providers.

Cloud Computing (CC), is a new type of computing idea, which enables users to
elastically utilize a shared pool of Cloud resources (e.g., processors, services, storages) in an
on-demand fashion. The objective of Cloud Computing is to permit users to get benefits without
the need for deep knowledge or expertise with each technology. The Cloud aims to cut costs,
and helps the users focus on their core business as opposed to being obstructed by IT
hindrances. Cloud Computing provides the users with the resources in terms of services, and
makes use of the established standards and practices to allow global and easy access to Cloud
services in a standardized way [3].

The Cloud and IoT have evolved independently. However, on the integration of these
two, there are many mutual advantages that have been presented in the literature and are
expected to be seen in the future. From one perspective, IoT can profit from the virtually
boundless capabilities and resources of Cloud to overcome its technological constraints (e.g.
processing, storage). In particular, the Cloud can offer a powerful solution to implement IoT
service management and provide storage space for the huge volume of data generated by these
things. Also from the other perspective, the Cloud can profit from IoT by enlarging its scope to
handle real world things in a more dynamic and distributed way [4].

Today the number of people owning smartphones, iPad, tablets etc., is tremendously
increasing. Most smartphones can access the Internet. Also smartphones produced from 2012
also have high-speed mobile broadband 4G LTE Internet [5]. With the invention of such
technologies, it is predicted that in coming years, most of the population will be connected to
the Internet at nearly all times. The demand for the use of Internet anywhere, anytime, is
leading to the development of even higher bandwidth technologies. Hence the integration of
Cloud Computing and mobile devices will therefore lead to easy and convenient ways for
controlling any systems remotely.

In this paper, we present an IoT framework to efficiently control the home appliances
with the use of Digi Device cloud. Regardless of the location or network, Device Cloud deals
with the correspondence between the remote devices and the application. It makes interfacing
remote resources simple, by giving all the tools to connect, store, manage and move data [6].

The organization of this paper for the remaining section is as follows: In Section 2, we
discuss the background information about Internet of Things, Cloud Computing and the
integration of IoT and Cloud Computing. In Section 3, we discuss the related work in the scope
of Smart Home. In Section 4, we present the problem definition. In Section 5, we discuss the
implementation details of our framework. In Section 6, we discuss the results. In Section 7, we
provide the conclusions and discuss future directions for research.

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[2] BACKGROUND
[2.1] INTERNET OF THINGS

The Internet of Things evolved for linking smart objects to the Internet. A smart object
refers to a thing embedded with sensors, software, electronics and connectivity that enables
them to collect and share information over the network. IoT create opportunities for more direct
integration of cyber–physical systems resulting in greater efficiency [7]. The significance of IP
to the Internet of Things does not naturally imply that non-IP systems are useless. It just implies
that non-IP systems require a gateway to achieve the Internet [8]. For eg., Wireless Sensor
nodes are low cost devices that are deployed in large numbers and may not include Internet
Protocol connectivity. Hence these nodes require a WSN edge node that can act as a gateway
between Wireless Sensor nodes and the IP network.

In the scope of Internet of Things, Smart Home provides users with the ability to monitor
and control when they are away from home and thereby achieving greater convenience and
security.

[2.2] CLOUD COMPUTING

Cloud Computing has revolutionized large-scale computation, storage, application

development, and web services. The users no longer need to invest on hardware, software,
manpower, and maintenance [9]. Some of the key features include world wide availability of
data, cost reduction for the users, Reduced Risk of losing data, reduced risk of server downtime,
easy and efficient to use. Cloud Computing is gaining popularity because of all its features
when compared with traditional on-premises computation.

Smart Homes require many of the features provided by Cloud Computing in order to
operate in a cost effective and a fault tolerant way

[3] RELATED WORK

In [10], the authors proposed a Household Appliance Control System using mobile
handset through GSM technology. In [11], the authors proposed an automation system that can
control home appliances from a PC using Bluetooth. The authors in [12] proposed a Home
automation system using Android phone using Bluetooth Technology. The authors in [13]
proposed a Home Automation system that uses the integration of multi-touch mobile devices,
Cloud networking and power-line communication to provide the user with remote control of
various lights and appliances via Internet. Similarly in [14], the authors proposed a Home
automation system that uses the combination of smart mobile devices, power-line
communication and Pachube Cloud Networking to provide the user with control of various
electrical appliances via Internet. In [15], the authors proposed a Java Based home automation
System. The design is based on an embedded board integrated to a PC-based server at home.
The home appliances are connected to the ports of the embedded system board and the status of
the electrical appliances are passed to the server. The home appliances can be monitored and
controlled locally using the embedded system board, or remotely using a web interface from
anywhere in the world. The author in [16] outlines the importance of a Cloud infrastructure to
provide the ability to remotely control Smart Homes in Internet of Things. In [17], the authors

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proposed an IoT framework for Smart Buildings with Cloud Computing. The idea is to have all
computational power in the Cloud. The authors in [18] proposed a Home Automation System
using Intel Galileo that also acts as a web server provides the user with control of various
electrical appliances and stores the sensor data in the Cloud. The system will automatically
change on the basis of sensors’ data. The author in [19] proposed a home automation system
that uses LabVIEW software as the main controlling system. The system can connect to the
internet and the user can monitor and control the house equipment’s from anywhere in the
world using LabVIEW. The author in [20] proposed a Smart Home using biometric
technologies and wireless sensor network. As shown in [21], most of the IoT architectures use a
gateway which acts as an intermediary between the Cloud and the end devices.

[4] PROBLEM DEFINITION

There are quite a few challenges that exist in a Smart Home System. Firstly, the system
should be scalable so that any new device can easily be added to it. Secondly, it should also
provide a user convenient interface, so that the devices can be monitored and controlled easily.
Thirdly the system should be cost effective so as to justify its application in Smart Home.
Finally, the users must be able to control the system even when they are away from home. The
objective of this research is to provide a framework of IoT for Smart Home system that is
scalable, cost effective and reliable by using Cloud Computing services.

[5] IOT FRAMEWORK FOR SMART HOME

The proposed IoT framework for Smart Home is shown in [Figure-1]. The model uses an
integration of Digi Cloud, Android mobile, Laptop as the gateway, low-cost microcontrollers
and Relays. From a mobile device, the user can run the mobile phone application and control
the home appliances via an Internet connection by obtaining the resources from Digi Device
Cloud. From a personal computer, the user can control the home appliances via Cloud using
Java based application.

Figure: 1. Proposed Smart Home System

[5.1] CLIENT

A Client is the user who controls the device via Internet from an Android Mobile device
or PC. Applications can communicate to gateway devices through Device Cloud using Web
Service requests, which are sent to Device Cloud using the Server Command Interface. SCI
(Server Command Interface) is a type of web service that will permit client to get information
and give appropriate commands to their device [6]. [Figure-2] shows how a Web Services

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Client can send a Server Command Interface to Device Cloud. In this example, the call given
via Web Service will address the device with Device ID 00409dFFFF010202.

Figure: 2. Example for Server Command Interface

[5.2] CLOUD

Digi Device Cloud by Etherios, a Cloud based network platform is used in this design.
Device Cloud provides a unique identifier (device ID) for the device and then registers it in the
Device Cloud account defined by the configured Vendor ID. Etherios Cloud Connector is a
software development package that enables the devices to exchange information with Device
Cloud over the Internet securely. The software can run on any device that has a minimum of 32
kB of Flash memory and 2.5 kB of RAM. The most important feature of the Etherios Cloud
Connector is that it is OS independent, which means that the device need not have an OS to
connect to Device Cloud by Etherios. Some of the other features of Etherios Cloud connector
are sending data to device Cloud, receiving data from device Cloud, and enabling remote
control of devices via the Device Cloud Platform [22].

[5.3] LAPTOP

In this design, Laptop is used as the main gateway which acts as an intermediary between
the Cloud application and the end devices. The Cloud application can issue the command via
Cloud to gateway and the gateway responses back to Cloud application via Cloud. The gateway
also communicates with the local controller unit and issue the appropriate command received
from the Cloud. The gateway can be any embedded device such as Raspberry Pi, Beagle Bone
etc.

[5.4] 89S52 MICROCONTROLLER

The AT89S52 is a low-power, high-performance CMOS 8-bit microcontroller. The

standard features of AT89S52 are 8K bytes of Flash, 32 I/O lines, 256 bytes of RAM, two data
pointers, Watchdog timer, three 16-bit timer/counters, a six-vector two-level interrupt
architecture, a full duplex serial port, clock circuitry and on-chip oscillator. There are four ports
which totally consist of 32 pins. In this design, all the pins of port 0 are connected to an 8 pin
relay board which in turn is connected to the home appliances. [Figure-3] shows the connection
inside the 8051 development board. The relay is an electromagnetic switch that operates on a
relatively small electric current (12 volts) that can indeed turn on/off another appliance that
uses a high electric current (230 volts).

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Figure: 3. Connection inside the microcontroller board.

[6] RESULTS
The devices connect to Digi Device Cloud via Internet. The user can issue commands to
turn on/off the electrical appliances. The Cloud on receiving the request checks whether it is a
valid request. If request found to be valid, the request is forwarded to the device which can turn
on/off the electrical appliances. The System facilitates the user with an Android mobile
application and a Java based PC application for controlling the devices remotely via Internet.

[7] CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK

The IOT framework for Smart Home using Cloud Computing is working satisfactorily as
described in this paper. The system allows the user to control the home appliances remotely via
Internet using a Java Based PC application and an Android Mobile application. The system was
tested on various home appliances like bulb, tube light and table fan.

The system design can be expanded to include different sensors like PVR, hall effect etc.,
It can also be enhanced by including more features like sending alarm messages to the users via
SMS/Email upon detecting anomalies. Also the system can provide remote firmware
upgradation for the IOT devices. Overall the framework is scalable and can be extended to
other applications like Smart Buildings.

REFERENCES
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Advanced Computer Theory and Engineering, IEEE, 2015.
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[20] Basil Hamed, “Design & Implementation of Smart House Control Using LabVIEW” at International
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[21] Basma M. Mohammad El-Basioni, Sherine M. Abd El-kader and Mahmoud Abdelmonim
Fakhreldin, “Smart Home Design using Wireless Sensor Network and Biometric Technologies”,
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[23] www.OpenSourceForU.com

J Rajalekshmi, currently pursuing M.Tech in Computer Science from

AMC College of Engineering. Major interests are Compiler Design,
Machine Learning and Cloud Computing.

SivaSankari G.G, working as Professor in AMC College of

Engineering. Her major research areas are Cryptography, Wireless
Sensor Networks, IoT etc.

Corresponding Address-
J Rajalekshmi,
189/A, 3rd Main,
Rajyotsava Nagar,
Kumaraswamy Layout 2nd Stage,
Bangalore – 560078.
India
Mobile Number: +91 9845008961

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