Home Automation

Although many techniques used in building automation (such as light and climate control, control of doors and window shutters, security and surveillance systems, etc.) are also used in home automation, additional functions in home automation include the control of multi-media home entertainment systems, automatic plant watering and pet feeding, and automatic scenes for dinners and parties.

The main difference between building automation and home automation is, however, the human interface. In home automation, ergonomics is of particular importance: the control should be largely image-based and self-explanatory.

When home automation is installed during construction of a new home, usually control wires are added before the drywall is installed. These control wires run to a controller, which will then control the environment.

Specific domotic standards include X10,ModBus, Universal powerline bus, INSTEON, KNX (standard), UPnP, ZigBee, EnOcean and Z-Wave that will allow for control of most applications.

SCADA Systems
Industrial Control System - Network Components
ICS - Control Components
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Industrial Control Systems
The Inteligent Building Concept
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Key issues for Intelligent Buildings
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Information technologies for the Intelligent Building
The Computer Integrated Building
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What Means DOMOTICS ?
Sub-Systems of Home Automation
The Stretches of Automation's in House
Time, Money and Home Automation
Domotic Systems Designing

In a retrofit situation, or when installing control wiring is too expensive or simply not possible, some of these standards are wireless or powerline protocols.

Some appliances includes USB that helps to control it and connect it to a domotics network.

Bridges translate information from one standard to another (eg. from X10 to EIB).
The elements of a domotics system are:

* controllers
* sensors
* actuators

[edit] Architecture

From the point of view of where the intelligence of the domotic system resides, there are two different architectures:

Centralized Architecture: a centralized controller receives information of multiple sensors and, once processed, generates the opportune orders for the actuators.

Distributed Architecture: all the intelligence of the system is distributed by all the modules that are sensors or actuators. Usually it is typical of the systems of wiring in bus.

Mixed Architecture: systems with decentralized architecture as far as which they have several small devices able to acquire and to process the information of multiple sensors and to transmit them to the rest of devices distributed by the house.

[edit] Interconnection

By wire:

1. xDSL
2. optical fiber
3. cable (coaxial and twisted pair)
4. powerline

Wireless:

1. radio frequency, including:

Wi-Fi
GPRS and UMTS
Bluetooth
DECT
ZigBee
EnOcean

2. infrared

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