Windows embedded home automation

After it has assessed the input from the sensors and made any necessary decisions, the CCU sends the command back to the RCU to take a specific action. Another topology to be considered is a mesh topology, which has no CCU and makes use of a constellation of control units of roughly equal intelligence and capability connected with each other. Each unit sends information on the network which is shared by all the units.

Each Unit is independent and makes its own decisions based on the shared information. The choice of system topology governs the selection of communication interfaces such as ZigBee, RF, Bluetooth, etc. Depth of automation: System design is affected by the requirements ranging from simple control of lights in the house to controlling all appliances and the security system.

Each requirement affects the overall design, and developers need to determine the most optimized way to perform all the tasks with the lowest cost and complexity. Despite the internal system complexity, the system should be easy to use and not pose barriers to its operation by a household user. Cost: This is the most important aspect of system design as system complexity and depth of automation determine the cost. A highly complex — and thus costly — system can deter customers from purchasing and installing it in their house.

The cost of the system is directly linked with the number of components, interface used, and complexity of design of firmware and hardware. While there should be no compromise on the quality of hardware and software, the number of components in the system can be decreased to reduce the overall cost and system size as well.

Rather than the traditional component-based approach, lower cost can be achieved using System-on-Chips SoC that integrate multiple peripherals and a processor into the same IC. The architecture of a home automation system While there are several topologies to choose from, for the sake of simplicity we focus in this article on a star topology-based home automation system and its two types of control units, the CCU and multiple RCUs Figure 3.

Common features of a central control unit are:. It has a set of sensors to sense the surrounding environment. Based on the current conditions, it can decide upon a course of action. Common features of a room control unit are:. Central Control Unit This is the main unit responsible for monitoring the complete home automation system. It interfaces with other system blocks to perform required tasks. The most common interfaces on a CCU are shown in Figure 4.

Some of these interfaces are optional and are used as per the system and user requirements. Sensors: Sensors are the eyes of a home automation system.

Basic home automation sensors include temperature sensors, humidity sensors, light sensors, and gas sensors. Data in the form of signals from these sensors can be used to control the various appliances directly without any human intervention. For example, lights can be automatically switched on upon sunset, an air conditioner can be switched off automatically when no movement is detected in the house for a half hour, or an alarm can be raised when the system detects a LPG leakage event.

Analog Front End AFE : Each sensor converts the change in a physical parameter such as temperature or light intensity to a similar change in electrical parameters such as resistance or capacitance. These physical quantities must be converted to a voltage equivalent so that the microcontroller can identify the variation in environment. For this purpose, an analog front end AFE is interfaced with analog sensors. The AFE preconditions output signals coming from the sensors by filtering out noise and providing required gain to the signals.

AFEs are also required to calibrate the system for sensor readings, thus providing a base value for the system to identify any changes in the environment. Remote Connectivity: Depending on need and various design considerations, users may need to be able to control the system and appliances remotely.

The two most common ways of doing this are using GSM-based mobile telephony and the Internet. GSM, Ethernet, or both interfaces can be used to communicate with the system from a remote location. These connectivity options generally require a serial communication protocol like SPI or I2C to communicate with the host processor. Manual Control: In a typical home automation system, there are situations when the user needs to manually control one or more appliances.

Manual user control should be authorized by the system to prevent control of the system by an intruder and the shutting down of intrusion alerts. An accurate time source is required to control appliances using time-based settings. An external RTC can be used to maintain time for the system and the central controller can access it to receive current time related information.

This technology is quickly gaining traction in embedded applications for communications and information sharing.

Power Monitor: In any house there are many electrical appliances that are sensitive to voltage fluctuations and need a reliable supply voltage within a specific range to work as expected. A power monitor block can be added to the Central Control Unit to check the instantaneous power supply voltage. This block brings down the voltage level of power supply to a level where the system can monitor it using an ADC.

Using input from this block, the controller can detect low voltage, high voltage, and voltage fluctuation situations. In extreme cases, this block can instruct RCUs to switch off sensitive appliances to prevent damage. An example of a simple power monitor circuit is given in Figure 5 and can be easily implemented into automation systems.

In the power monitor circuit, the potential divider circuit brings down the mains voltage to a lower voltage which can be safely measured by a microcontroller ADC.

The peak detector circuit creates an envelope on the scaled down voltage that gets measured. The protection diode protects the microcontroller by limiting the maximum voltage to its Zener Voltage Vz. This unit receives control commands from the central control unitand also from user buttons that can directly control appliances. Wonderware Irvine, Calif. Embedding applications into machinery that line workers already know results in less downtime and more productive operations, Mr.

Emery says. Other major HMI and control hardware and software vendors embracing Microsoft platforms seem likely to implement Win CE within their systems, with products emerging now, or soon. Offers quick response times with planned improvements ; Is embedded in machinery;.

Win CE can operate equipment while an NT box runs supervisory functions for a group;. Operates in a form factor familiar to the plant worker, making it easy to support, operate and manage;.

Runs on many different processors, including leading RISC, x86, chips, some with very low power consumption; and. Microsoft Windows CE applications and products are fast emerging for industrial automation, process control, and instrumentation. Use the numbers below and visit. Annasoft Systems San Diego, Calif.

Annasoft, Sept. TFT color display and touchscreen. BSquare Bellevue, Wa. Iconics Foxborough, Mass. Users can monitor operations in real-time and zoom in on graphical representations of processes and access historical information from corporate databases. Dynapro New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada has human-machine interface software architecture on Windows CE for developers to build applications on a common base allowing interoperability between machine control and supervisory control.

Flash drives to MB are available. Color VGA resolution is x x pixels on a TFT display. Zinformatica provides consultancy on embedded and real-time technologies in the fields of home automation, robotics and industrial automation: — We work on Windows Embedded technologies from the EC to the present — We develop on PLC and supply CAM solutions.

Industry 4. We evaluate and study Sentiment and Brand or Product Reputation for our customers. The main activities are: — Studying problems and trends — Legal advice by the parties — Detailed reports of articles, conversations.

Zinformatica is able to provide all the internet services to help companies find a place in the network. Website design and SEO consulting. Find out how we can help: CTP Cybercrime. By protecting a volume from write access it eliminates the threat of viruses, and running from RAM will eliminate corrupt files if the machine is shut down in the middle of an operation. EWF has password protection and can be turned on and off when installing new software. EWF redirects all write operations to another storage location called an overlay, which can be in RAM or on another disk partition.

In addition, an EWF volume is created on the media in unpartitioned disk space to store configuration information about all EWF-protected volumes on the device, including the number and sizes of protected volumes and overlay levels.

XP Embedded makes it possible to configure a run-time image to boot from a hibernation file with EWF enabled. This allows for quicker boot time, makes it possible to define the state of a system by booting with specific applications and services running, and supports the hibernate once, resume many HORM utility.

HORM allows the user to define a hibernated state that quickly wakes up the system without having to perform a full OS boot, which is useful for systems that spend much of their time in standby mode. As another aid to the boot process, Advantech offers the Advantech WatchDog API, which works with a watchdog timer WDT: a device or electronic card that performs a specific operation after a certain period of time if something goes wrong with an electronic system and the system does not recover on its own.

The watchdog timer can be programmed to perform a warm boot restarting the system after a certain number of seconds during which a program or computer fails to respond following the most recent user input. Supported communications modes can include Ethernet, USB 2.