%0 Journal Article
%T Experimental Evaluation of a SIP-Based Home Gateway with Multiple Wireless Interfaces for Domotics Systems
%A Rosario G. Garroppo
%A Loris Gazzarrini
%A Stefano Giordano
%A Luca Tavanti
%J Journal of Computer Networks and Communications
%D 2012
%I Hindawi Publishing Corporation
%R 10.1155/2012/190639
%X In modern houses, the presence of sensors and actuators is increasing, while communication services and entertainment systems had long since settled into everyday life. The utilization of wireless communication technologies, such as ZigBee, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth, is attractive because of their short installation times and low costs. The research is moving towards the integration of the various home appliances and devices into a single domotics system, able to exploit the cooperation among the diverse subsystems and offer the end-user a single multiservice platform. In this scenario, the paper presents the experimental evaluation of a domotics framework centered on a SIP-based home gateway (SHG). While SIP is used to build a common control plane, the SHG is in charge of translating the user commands from and to the specific domotics languages. The analysis has been devoted to assess both the performance of the SHG software framework and the negative effects produced by the simultaneous interference among the three widespread wireless technologies. 1. Introduction Domotics refers to a system that controls several (or all) home ¡°services,¡± such as lighting, HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning), communications, security, healthcare, and entertainment, in a integrated and automatic or semi-automatic way, allowing the user to manage them from a series of heterogeneous devices (e.g., touch panels, remotes, mobile handsets, and smartphones), either at home or from anywhere in the world. In the domotics archetype, all subsystems are able to talk to each other and interact in a seamless manner, realizing an intelligent structure that improves the quality of life, reduces the costs, and achieves energy savings. To put this paradigm into practice, the communication among the single devices and between the various subsystems is the fundamental operation. Hence, wired and wireless networks will be one of the building blocks of the present and future domotics solutions. On top of this somewhat ¡°physical¡± element, a common control plane is also necessary, in order to unify the management operations into a single and portable user interface. One of the major components of a domotics system is the set of sensors and actuators. These usually come in the form of one or more networks, backed either by a single technology or by different ones. Not always, however, do the specifications define a common control plane that is suitable to contemporarily manage devices belonging not only to different standards, but even to different application profiles. As a result,
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/jcnc/2012/190639/