Wireless Short Range Communication Technologies for Home Automation

Abstract: A modern home contains varieties of electronic equipment and systems like: TV, Hi-fi equipment, central heating systems, fire alarm systems, security alarm systems, lighting systems etc. Enabling these devices to communicate is the first step towards the long-predicted smart home, but this requires communication standards to follow. It can be anticipated that the technology must be wireless in order for such network to be feasible.  Large set of standards are present for as well wired as wireless communication in between such devices, but today no standard communication interface available.   The goal of this project is to survey available standards for short-range wireless communication, and to evaluate and compare their capabilities to become a general standard for home automation. The evaluation must take such aspects as security, range, network architecture and the heterogeneous set of devices into consideration. Furthermore, this thesis proposes how to interconnect the home network to the external network for remote supervision and control.