ORIGINAL ARTICLE

K.-L. Su (*)Department of Electrical Engineering, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, Douliou, Yunlin 640, Taiwane-mail: sukl@yuntech.edu.tw

S.-H. Chia · S.-V. Shiau · J.-H. GuoGraduate School of Engineering Science and Technology, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, Yunlin, Taiwan

This work was presented in part at the 14th International Symposium on Artifi cial Life and Robotics, Oita, Japan, February 5–7, 2009

Artif Life Robotics (2009) 14:242–246 © ISAROB 2009DOI 10.1007/s10015-009-0663-4

Kuo-Lan Su · Song-Hiang Chia · Sheng-Ven Shiau Jr-Hung Guo

Developing a module-based security system for an intelligent home

1 Introduction

Intelligent buildings and the home can provide safety, con-venience, and welfare for human living in the 21st century, and allow effective management of resources with minimum life-time costs at the same time. The most important role of the intelligent home is as a security system. In the security system, redundant and complementary information can enhance the system’s reliability and certainty by using a multisensor fusion method. In general, the price of an intel-ligent home system is very high. We want to develop a cheap, fl exible, and intelligent system which is very easy to operate and convenient for the user.

Wang and So1 presented a history of the development of building automation systems (BAS). The structures of fea-tures of a modern BAS were introduced and future trends were discussed. Azegami and Fujiyoshi2 described a system-atic approach to intelligent building design. Kujuro and Yasuda3 discussed the evolution of intelligent building systems. The quality of building services can be enhanced by the updated information processing and communications functions of building automation systems. Finley et al.4 pre-sented a survey of intelligent buildings, and reviewed issues such as system perspective, subsystem services, and mult-itenant buildings. Fiax5 discussed the components and cost benefi ts of an intelligent building. Chung et al.6 and Fu and Shih7 expect to set up a standard of appliances and com-munication protocols, and propose a complete system archi-tecture with an integrated control kernel to construct an intelligent building system.

This article is organized as follows. Section 2 describes the structure of the security system for an intelligent home. Section 3 explains the detection methods and algorithms for the detection modules of the security system. Section 4 describes the user interface in the intelligent home. Section 5 presents the experimental results of using these modules for a home security system. The brief concluding comments are given in Sect. 6.

Abstract The security system in a workplace or home is important to human life. Unlucky events are often caused by the negligence of humans. We have developed a module-based security system for home automation. The structure of the security system contains many modules. Each module has two types of interface (wireless RF and speech). There are active and passive modules in the security system. The active security module is a smart robot. We have designed many types of smart robot for the security system. The passive security modules include a fi re security module, an intruder security module, an environment security module, a gas security module, an AC power security module, and an appliance control module. In the security module, we use multisensor fusion algorithms to decide the exact output. In these modules, we use a two-wire communication method through the wireless RF interface, and a voice alarm for serious events, and transmit the real-time status to the supervised computer. In the smart robot system, we have designed many types of smart robot for the security system. We have designed a general user interface (GUI) for the intelligent security system. The user interface can supervise these modules and the smart robots via the wireless RF device, and supervise the security system via wireless, Inter-net, and cell phone.

Key words Intelligent building · Home automation · Wire-less RF · General user interface.

Received and accepted: May 11, 2009

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2 System architecture

The system architecture of an intelligent home security system is shown in Fig. 1. The system contains many sub-systems. The supervised computer and the smart robots can receive the status of the security modules and the appliance control modules via a wireless RS232 interface. The security modules and the appliance control modules use two-way communication with the supervised computer and the smart robots. The intelligent mobile robot and the supervised computer can communicate with the GSM modem via an RS232 interface, and can communicate with the remote supervised computer via wireless Internet.

The display panel of the supervised computer is a televi-sion. We developed the user interface using Visual Basic language for an intelligent security system. The supervised computer can control the smart robots via a wireless RF interface, and control the intelligent mobile robot via wire-less Internet. We can acquire image signals from the intel-ligent mobile robot, the supervised computer, and IPCAM through the Internet. The supervised computer can acquire image signals from smart robots and CCD via a wireless

RF interface. Here, we are considering security modules, appliance control modules, smart robots, and the user interface.

In the architecture, there are many modules in the system, and it is equipped with a microcomputer (HT46R24) as the controller. These modules are independent and autonomous, and can work concurrently. Each module can transmit sensory data, parameter values, and detection results to smart robots and the supervised computer via a wireless series interface (RS232), and also transmit the detection results to a PDA and a 3G mobile phone using a GSM module. These modules can talk in Chinese with real-time measured data using a voice module. We have devel-oped a general user interface for the home security system. The security system communicates with a mobile phone using a global system for the mobile (GSM) modular. The GSM modular (WMOD2) was made by Wavecom. The modular is a self-contained E-GSM900/GSM1800 (or E-GSM900/GSM1900) dual-band module.

3 Detection modules

We have developed some intelligent security detection modules for home automation systems based on multimodel fusion architecture. They contain active and passive security modules for the security system. We have designed some smart robots that are embedded detection devices to detect the environmental status. In the passive security system, there is a fi re security module, an intruder security module, an environment security module, a power security module, and a gas security module. These modules can detect the surroundings of the intelligent home using sensors, and transmit the detection results to the supervised computer via a wireless RF interface. The sensory types of these secu-rity modules are given in Table 1.

3.1 Fire security module

In the fi re detection module, we use three fl ame sensors to detect the source of a fi re, and use the weighted average method to decide where the fi re is situated. We set the same weight value for these sensors. The prototype of the fi re detection module is shown in Fig. 2. The decision is taken according to Eqs. 1 and 2. We then set a threshold for the fi re security module. The average value x̄ is over the thresh-old, and we can say that this is a fi re event. Otherwise we can say that there is no fi re. The i-th measurement value of Fig. 1. Overview of the home security system

Table 1. The sensors of the security modules

Module Sensors

Fire security module Three fl ame sensorsIntruder security module Touch sensor, magnetic sensor, IR sensor, and body sensorEnvironment security module Humidity sensor, illumination sensor, and temperature sensorPower security module Four current sensorsGas security module CO sensor, smoke sensor, gas sensor, and alcohol sensorSmart robot Flame sensor, gas sensor, and body sensor

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n fl ame sensors is xi, and the weighted values must satisfy 0 ≤ ωi ≤ 1. In addition,

x xi ii

n

==∑ω

1

(1)

ωii

n

=∑ =

1

1 (2)

3.2 AC power security module

We have proposed a power detection and diagnosis method using four measured current values in the AC power security module, and using a multilevel multisensor fusion method to decide the exact power of the intelligent home. A redundant management method is developed for the power security module. The proposed method is not only to detect the power value, but also to diagnose the sensory status.8 We can fi nd the estimated value x̂ of the measured parameter by the following equation at a predetermined sample time.

x̂m I

I

i ii

l

ii

l j= =

=

−

∑

∑1

1

(3)

Ii f m m b b i li j i jj

l

= − ≤ +( )[ ] ==

∑1

1 2, ,� (4)

fif is true

if is false*

, *

, *[ ] = ⎧

⎨⎩1

0 (5)

where mi and mj are the measured values of the i-th and j-th sensor, respectively, and Ii is the indicator function of the i-th sensor. Here, bi and bj are threshold values for the i-th and j-th sensor, respectively.

3.3 Smart robots

The smart robot has four levels of embedded hardware devices. The robot has the shape of a cylinder, and its diam-

eter, height, and weight are 8 cm, 15 cm, and 2 kg, respec-tively. A robot is shown in Fig. 3. The smart robot has three Li batteries connected in parallel. It also has three IR sensors to avoid obstacles. The controller of the smart robot is an HT46R24, which can acquire the detection signal from sensors through I/O pins, and which receives commands from the supervised computer and the remote controller via a wireless RF interface. The controller of the smart robot can transmit the detection results to the remote controller and the supervised computer via a wireless RF interface. The controller of the remote controller is also a HOLTEK microchip.

4 User interface

The user interface of the intelligent security system is shown in Fig. 4. There are four regions in the supervised interface. This is the graphic supervised monitor for the intelligent security system in region 1. We can program the status of

Fig. 2. Prototype of the fi re detection moduleFig. 3. The smart robot and the remote controller

Fig. 4. The user interface of the supervised system

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the security modules and the appliance control modules, and control these modules via a wireless RF interface. Then the supervised computer can receive the status from these modules via a wireless RF interface. We can move any module (security module or appliance control module) of region 2 to the region using the mouse.

Region 2 can display the arrangement of these security modules and appliance control modules. It can display the real-time measured values of the security modules, and we can set the threshold value by the supervised computer, and transmit the set value to the module via a wireless RF inter-face. In region 3, we can program the output response for any security signal input. For example, if an intruder appeared, we can program an alarm and a hazard, control the appliance module, and transmit the status to the user by the remote supervised computer, PDA, or 3G mobile phone via the Internet or the GSM modem in the region. The user can program the status of each fl oor of the building in region 4.

5 Experimental results

In the intruder security module, we use a magnetic sensor to detect an intruder. The intruder detection module can

transmit the decision results to the supervised computer and the remote supervised computer (or mobile phone) via a wireless RF interface and the Internet (or GSM modem). The experimental results are shown in Fig. 5. The user sets off the magnetic sensor from the intruder detection module (from Fig. 5a to 5b). The module can transmit the signal to the supervised computer, and the supervised computer can transmits the intruder status to the user using the GSM modem shown in Fig. 5c. The module can say “intruder” in the Chinese language. There are many experimental results in Chien et al.9.

The smart robot can move autonomously according to the environment using IR sensors. We can supervise smart robots to move forward, backward, turn right, turn left, and stop via a wireless RF interface. Smart robots can receive the detection signals from the security modules via a wire-less RF interface, and move to the appropriate place. It can transmit an image signal and real-time data to the super-vised computer and the remote controller via a wireless RF interface. We can control a CCD device to record the event via a wireless RF interface. Smart robots can detect a gas leakage, and transmit the result to the remote controller and the supervised computer, and transmit a real-time image to the supervised computer. The experimental results are shown in Fig. 6.

Fig. 5. The experimental result for intruder detection

Fig. 6. The experimental result for gas detection. a The smart robot. b The remote controller. c The supervised computer

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6 Conclusion

We have presented an intelligent security system to be applied in the intelligent home. The security system con-tains active security modules (smart robots) and a passive security module. These security modules have two inter-faces, one is a wireless RF interface, and the other is a voice interface. The voice speaks the Chinese language according to the environmental status. The security system contains fi ve detection modules, some application control modules, and smart robots. The detection methods of these modules have a weighted average method, a statistical method, and a redundancy management method. Smart robots can detect the environmental status, and transmit an event signal and a real-time image to the remote controller and the super-vised computer via a wireless RF interface. We can control the smart robots by the wireless controller and the super-vised computer via the wireless RF interface, and supervise all these devices using a remote supervised computer, a PDA, and a 3G mobile phone via the wireless Internet.

Acknowledgment This work was supported by the project “The Development of Multiple-Module-Based Smart Robots” under the Industrial Development Bureau of the Ministry of Economic Affair of Taiwan, ROC.

References

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