Among the smart technologies - smart devices, smart cars, smart homes, smart cities - why has only the smartphone gained worldwide appeal? The aim of this paper is to explore the barriers faced by smart cities and smart homes, and highlight why the two applications of IoT have not gained significant traction despite a decade of promise. Significantly larger in scale than the smart home, the smart city is more constrained by the technical limits of IoT technology due to resource-limited nodes. Therefore this paper will explore the technical hurdles common in the smart city sphere and evaluate potential solutions. On the other side of the spectrum, the use of IoT in the home can be a deeply personal decision. From a business perspective, the smart home market grows increasingly crowded as ambitious entrepreneurs are all looking to claim a piece of an ever-expanding pie. The smart home section will strive to unpack these complex social and business dynamics, suggesting ways to expand and retain a larger user-base.

Smart home systems (SHS) have become an increasingly important technology in modern life. Apart from safety, security, convenience and entertainment, they offer significant potential benefits for the elderly, disabled and others who cannot live independently. Furthermore, smart homes are environmentally friendly. SHS functionality is based on perceiving residents’ needs and desires, then offering services accordingly. In order to be smart, homes have to be equipped with sensors, actuators and intelligent devices and appliances, as well as connectivity and control mechanisms. A typical SHS comprises heterogeneous services and appliances that are designed by many different developers and which may meet for the first time in the home network. The heterogeneous nature of the systems, in addition to the dynamic environment in which they are deployed, exposes them to undesirable interactions between services, known as Feature Interaction (FI). Another reason for FI is the divergence between the policies, needs and desires of different residents. Proposed approaches to FI detection and resolution should take these different types of interaction into account. Negotiation is an effective mechanism to address FI, as conflicting features can then negotiate with each other to reach a compromise agreement. The ultimate goal of this study is to develop an Agent-Based Negotiation Approach (ABNA) to detect and resolve feature interaction in a SHS. A smart home architecture incorporating the components of the ABNA has been proposed. The backbone of the proposed approach is a hierarchy in which features are organised according to their importance in terms of their functional contribution to the overall service. Thus, features are categorised according to their priority, those which are essential for the service to function having the highest priority. An agent model of the ABNA is proposed and comprehensive definitions of its components are presented. A computational model of the system also has been proposed which is used to explain the behaviour of different components when a proposal to perform a task is raised. To clarify the system requirements and also to aid the design and implementation of its properties, a formal specification of the ABNA is presented using the mathematical notations of Calculus of Context-aware Ambient (CCA), then in order to evaluate the approach a case study is reported, involving two services within the SHS: ventilation and air conditioning. For the purpose of evaluation, the execution environment of CCA is utilised to execute and analyse the ABNA.

Ubiquitous computing describes the aspirations of including information systems into the fabric of our daily lives. The emphasis of the user should be on what task needs to be achieved rather than how the system will do it. The interface of applications that are integrated into the home fabric needs to be delicate in the sense that it should give the feeling of being a part of the home rather than a piece of technology. The human computer interaction/interface needs to be cohesive with the environment people live in so as to maximise the interaction possibilities. Photographs are a very affective and efficient way of connecting people to each other. We should not forget the social role photographs have to play. The most important aspect of the picture is the story that it is trying to convey, the people in it, or the place it was taken. Emotions are a very private part of our personal life and how one displays it reflects one’s lifestyle. In recent years increasing efforts have been put into preserving emotions in photos particularly with the advent of digital cameras. Now photographs have become an important part of our lives and have significant social role as they provide an affective communication link between friends and families. This research will be looking at how people relate themselves to pictures and if we could capture their emotions and expressions to store them in a way that is representative of their feelings towards the picture. As emotions can be associated with pictures of family, friends, places, holidays, social gatherings or travel to mention some of the aspects, we will also be analysing as to how emotions change over a period of time and if it could be represented accordingly in association with digital photos. This will allow us to look into the factors, which can make digital photo sharing a more fun and enjoyable experience. This research will involve user based evaluations and a scenario based approach for modelling the photo sharing interface. The creation of photo sharing system, based on this approach, is then investigated using the method of prototyping. The research shows methods, architectures, and tools used to make the development process more efficient and help assess the viability of the system under conditions that simulate to everyday use of the photo sharing software. To generalise and communicate results, the project will seek to simulate the home environment in a laboratory setting, using prototypes based on current high-end computing devices. The .Net technologies used for rapid prototyping is introduced. The aim of this research is to provide a demonstration environment of a photo sharing software for the smart home, which will allow for Reception/Viewing/distribution of photos within the home environment. The data could incorporate Audio/Video/Text/Photos, and user input etc. The research will also help us understand various aspects of how people interact with Digital Photos, what they would like to do, how can storing photos be made simpler, annotation of pictures, how can sharing photo’s made simpler, and how we can design an application which would allow users to attach emotions to pictures. The photo sharing system will provide an effective means to receive and distribute emotional information based on personal and temporal relationships associated with photos. The research also analyses the role of human computer interaction when developing ubiquitous technologies for the smart homes where information is embedded in the environment people live in. The research will present an overview of how photo sharing systems can be developed and evaluated using prototypes and user evaluations.

Machine learning methods are increasingly being used to solve real-world problems in the society. Often, the complexity of the methods are well hidden for users. However, integrating machine learning methods in real-world applications is not a straightforward process and requires knowledge both about the methods and domain knowledge of the problem. Two such domains are colour print quality assessment and anomaly detection in smart homes, which are currently driven by manual monitoring of complex situations. The goal of the presented work is to develop methods, algorithms and tools to facilitate monitoring and understanding of the complex situations which arise in colour print quality assessment and anomaly detection for smart homes. The proposed approach builds on the use and adaption of supervised and unsupervised machine learning methods. Novel algorithms for computing objective measures of print quality in production are proposed in this work. Objective measures are also modelled to study how paper and press parameters influence print quality. Moreover, a study on how print quality is perceived by humans is presented and experiments aiming to understand how subjective assessments of print quality relate to objective measurements are explained. The obtained results show that the objective measures reflect important aspects of print quality, these measures are also modelled with reasonable accuracy using paper and press parameters. The models of objective  measures are shown to reveal relationships consistent to known print quality phenomena. In the second part of this thesis the application area of anomaly detection in smart homes is explored. A method for modelling human behaviour patterns is proposed. The model is used in order to detect deviating behaviour patterns using contextual information from both time and space. The proposed behaviour pattern model is tested using simulated data and is shown to be suitable given four types of scenarios. The thesis shows that parts of offset lithographic printing, which traditionally is a human-centered process, can be automated by the introduction of image processing and machine learning methods. Moreover, it is concluded that in order to facilitate robust and accurate anomaly detection in smart homes, a holistic approach which makes use of several contextual aspects is required. / PPQ / SA3L

Στόχος της παρούσας διπλωματικής εργασίας είναι να γίνει μια εκτίμηση και ρύθμιση τη λειτουργίας κάποιων συσκευών ενός «έξυπνου» σπιτιού σε ένα ενσωματωμένο σύστημα. Η λογική είναι να μπορεί ο χρήστης να δει ποια είναι η μέση κατανάλωση ισχύος μιας συσκευής και το αντίστοιχο χρηματικό κόστος που αναλογεί σε αυτήν, για κάποιο χρονικό διάστημα λειτουργίας της και υπολογισμού της βέλτιστης συμπεριφορά της συσκευής έτσι ώστε να επιτύχουμε την ελάχιστη δυνατή κατανάλωση. Τα φορτία τα οποία ελέγχθηκαν είναι ένα κλιματιστικό, ένα πλυντήριο και ένας θερμοσίφωνας. Η υλοποίηση έγινε σε ένα ενσωματωμένο σύστημα και δημιουργήθηκε και ένα περιβάλλον γραφικής απεικόνισης για επικοινωνία με τον χρήστη. / Simulation of the behavior of three home electrical devices with the use of demand response algorithms. Calculation of energy consumption of each device and money charge. Setting the behavior of each device to minimize total cost.

This thesis presents the Simple Internet of Things Enabler (SITE), a smart home solution that allows users to specify and centrally control IoT smart objects. Unlike most existing systems, SITE supports End-User Development (EUD). It includes features that make the system accessible to users that do not possess a background in Information Technology (IT). Hence, it defines a simple language for the specification of control rules for smart objects. It also provides a user interface to graphically illustrate data received from smart objects. Furthermore, we present the SITE architecture and describe the components that enable users to define, register, and operate smart objects within a smart home environment. Since deploying applications on the cloud renders many advantages pertaining to data security, robustness, and elasticity of resources, we additionally propose a cloud-based architecture for SITE. In this case, SITE acts as a service hosted on a cloud platform that realizes monitoring and control of a smart home remotely. Moreover, since most of the objects in any environment are not inherently smart, we propose a framework that affords “everyday” objects the necessary modules to measure and report their state. Hence, users realize the smart objects using a transducer network framework that supports the amalgamation of multiple transducers into a single smart object. To make these objects easily reconfigurable, we apply a plug and play mechanism to enable the clustering of any number of transducers. We propose an algorithm that dynamically detects added and removed transducers from a smart object. To assess the usability of SITE, we conduct an empirical study involving 20 participants belonging to two user groups: users with technical training (IT users) and users without technical training (Non-IT users). We demonstrate that both user groups can satisfactorily build smart objects and define control rules in a smart home environment using SITE.

Internet of things (IoT) möjliggör innovation i hemmet med extra bekvämligheter och värde inom en mängd olika domäner. Allt oftare utrustas städer, hushåll och kontorsmiljöer med smarta säkerhetslösningar som syftar till att öka individers säkerhet. Samtidigt återfinns det svaga säkerhetsimplementeringar i allt flera system. Det finns en mängd etablerade risker med att använda ett smart hem och när man då väljer att kombinera det med ett säkerhetssystem blir konsekvenserna av ett eventuellt dataintrång omfattande för den personliga integriteten.     Syftet med denna studie är att bidra med kunskap kring vilka betydande säkerhetsrisker som identifieras vid användandet av säkerhetssystem i hemmet, samt hur medvetna användare är gällande riskerna när de implementerar säkerhetssystem i det smarta hemmet. De frågeställningar som ligger till grund för studien är: ”Utifrån aktuell forskning, vilka betydande säkerhetsrisker kan identifieras vid användning av säkerhetssystem i det smarta hemmet?”, ”Är användarna medvetna om riskerna med säkerhetssystem i det smarta hemmet? ” och ”Vilka säkerhetslösningar implementerar ovannämnda användare?”. För att besvara frågeställningarna har en blandad metodologi använts genom en litteraturundersökning och en enkätundersökning, där presenterades riskerna och respondenterna fick besvara hur medvetna de var om dessa risker.   Resultatet visar att respondenterna har hög medvetenhet om riskerna med säkerhetssystem i det smarta hemmet. Av studien framgår det att respondenterna i stor utsträckning kan beskriva de eventuella risker som ett säkerhetssystem i det smarta hemmet medför. Enkätundersökningen visar även att till stor del har de flesta teknisk utbildning och att majoriteten av respondenterna var män. Notera att utbildning, kön och ålder är ett intressant öppet problem att utföra undersökningen på när det gäller mer inhomogena grupper, dock ligger det utanför den valda problemställningen. Det kan vara av intresse i framtida forskning att utföra studien på inhomogena grupper för att få mer nyanserade svar.

Advances in communication technology have led to the growth of what is called Ambient Intelligence (AmI). AmI refers to an environment which is intelligent and has advanced computing, networking technology and specific interfaces. It is aware of the specific characteristics of human presence and personalities, takes care of what people need and is capable of responding intelligently according to different activities, and even can engage in intelligent dialogue with the user. Variability of location and system behavior is a central issue in AmI, where behavior of software has to change and re-adapt to the different location settings. AmI refers to an environment that acts on behalf of humans. It is sensitive, contextualized, responsive, interconnected, transparent, and intelligent. This environment is coupled with ubiquity of computing devices that enables it to react differently according to different actions, and even to take the initiative towards fulfilling human needs. Security, privacy, and trust challenges are amplified with AmI computing model and need to be carefully engineered. From software engineering perspective, the shift towards AmI can be seen abstractly similar to the shift from object paradigm towards agent one. Objects provide functionality to be exploited, while agents possess functionality and know how and when to use and offer it autonomously. Agent paradigm is suitable for implementing AmI considering AmI as an open complex system. Moreover, developers argue that agent paradigm is useful for engineering all aspects of such intelligent systems. These days, the large diversity of needs in a home-based patient population requires complex technology. Meeting those needs technically requires the use of a distributed approach and the combination of many hardware and software techniques. Furthermore, this service should be accepted in all scales and should be sufficient enough to meet all the requirements. In this thesis, I study the factors which can affect the acceptance of AmI especially when it is used to support elderly people and people with dementia, and I give suggestions which can improve the acceptance of this technology. / <p>Validerat; 20101217 (root)</p>

Yes / The exponential growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) has paved the way for safety-critical cyber-physical systems to enter our everyday activities. While such systems have changed the way of our life, they brought new challenges that can adversely affect our life and the environment. Safety and security are two such challenges that can hamper the widespread adoption of new IoT applications. Due to a large number of connected devices and their ability to control critical physical assets, intended attacks on them and/or unintended failure events such as mechanical failure of devices, communication failure and unforeseen bad interactions between connected devices may cause an IoT-based system to enter into unsafe and dangerous physical states. By considering the importance of safety and security of IoT systems, in this article, we present a security-enabled safety monitoring framework for IoT-based systems. In the proposed framework, we utilise design-time system analysis to create an executable monitoring model that enables run-time safety assurance provision for a system via collecting and analysing operational data and evidence to determine the safety status of the system and then taking appropriate actions and securely communicating the safety status and recommended actions to the system users to minimise the risk of the system entering into an unsafe state.

Des projections réalisées sur les perspectives démographiques et financières de la dépendance prévoient, en France, une nette augmentation de la population des plus de 80 ans, accompagnée d'une multiplication par 2 du nombre de personnes âgées dépendantes entre 2010 et 2060. Afin de gérer l'augmentation du nombre de personnes âgées dépendantes, les EHPAD (Etablissement d'Hébergement pour Personne Agées Dépendantes) sont appelés à améliorer la prise en charge des résidents et à améliorer les conditions de travail du personnel soignant. C'est dans ce contexte, que nous avons développé un système de supervision permettant de détecter, via un ensemble de capteurs, des évolutions du comportement ou encore, le comportement anormal d'une personne âgée. La détection des comportements anormaux dans le cadre de la supervision est un sujet de recherche qui a été largement étudié dans la littérature ; ce qui n'est tout de même pas le cas de l'analyse des variations des activités de la vie de tous les jours, prenant en compte les spécificités du comportement de la personne au cours du temps. Ainsi, nous avons proposé un modèle de Markov, permettant d'apprendre, avec le moins d'a priori possible, le modèle de comportement habituel au sein de la chambre. Le modèle proposé a été testé sur des données acquises en Living Lab (GIS-Madonah). Nous avons également proposé une nouvelle approche pour calculer la distance entre deux modèles de Markov, afin d'évaluer l'évolution du comportement au cours du temps. Ces méthodes devront permettre, non seulement de déterminer la probabilité du comportement actuel de la personne par rapport à son comportement habituel ; mais également, de détecter des évolutions lentes du comportement de la personne. / Due to demographic changes, it is expected that the number of French having over 80 years will increase drastically and the number of dependent elderly people will grow twice between 2010 and 2060. To manage this increasing number of dependent elderly person, nursing homes are required to improve the care of residents and to improve the working conditions of health workers. In this context, we plan to develop a monitoring system, based on a set of sensors, to detect modifications in the behavior of a person, and unusual behavior. Detection of abnormal activities in smart homes is an important topic of research, unlike the detection of the evolutions of behavior, which take into account the specifics activities of the person in time. Thus, we proposed a Markov model which allow to learn the usual behavior in the room, with a reduced number of a priori. The model is try on data acquired on a Living Lab (GIS Madonah). We proposed a new method to compute the distance between two Markov models, to estimate the evolution of the behavior. These methods allow to compute the probability of the current activities with the usual behavior, and the slow evolutions of the behavior.