<p> This project discusses the Home Automation System (HAS), which utilizes the technology of wireless sensor network (WSN). The control mechanism of these systems is based on ZigBee that works in collaboration with mobile and Internet systems. The input of these devices is quite different, which creates challenges for the creators of the system. Certain household devices are very easy to control while others have comparatively complex inputs. The system should be able to control both types of devices through a singular interface. This challenge is overcome by implementation of the wireless sensor nodes in a HAS. A highly important advantage of using ZigBee&rsquo;s monitoring system is energy conservation, and reduction in power costs. Utilization of HAS leads to a decrease in consumption of water, electricity and other energy inputs, a reduction of the cost of utilities, and the improvement of security features. The paper demonstrates that Home Automation System has numerous applications beyond control of lighting, temperature and security cameras in a household. The technology opens up frontiers for numerous other applications in the area of home assistance and even in home health care.</p>

<p> The effectiveness of a cognitive radio (CR) system depends mainly on involved spectrum sensing techniques. The main aim of CR is for effective utilization of the spectrum opportunistically by sharing it with secondary users (SUs), when the primary user (PU) is absent. In this project, cooperative spectrum sensing using weights based on the distance measures from the PU and Multitaper Method (MTM) method is briefly explained. The results show that MTM method provides more accurate threshold value compared to other methods for low signal to noise ratios (SNRs), hence improving the spectrum sensing technique. The results also show that MTM method requires a lesser number of Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) sub-blocks compared to Periodogram (PE) for the same performance.</p>