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Internet of Things for Smart Homes and Industrial Application
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Internet of Things for Smart Homes and Industrial Application

A special issue of Sensors (ISSN 1424-8220). This special issue belongs to the section "Internet of Things".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 January 2022) | Viewed by 102486

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Tiago M. Fernández-Caramés

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Computer Engineering, University of A Coruña, A Coruña, Spain
Interests: blockchain; intelligent transportation systems; wireless sensor networks; fog computing; edge computing; industrial Internet of things (IIoT); RFID; wireless communications; cybersecurity; augmented reality; Industry 4.0; traceability
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Paula Fraga-Lamas

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Computer Engineering, University of A Coruña (UDC), 15071 A Coruña, Spain
Interests: blockchain; distributed ledger technology (DLT); fog computing; internet of things; IIoT; cyber-physical systems; industry 4.0; defense and public safety; cybersecurity; wearables; industrial augmented reality; traceability
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In the last few years, the improvement of wireless protocols, the development of new computing paradigms, and the lower cost of hardware have resulted in a new era for Internet of things (IoT) and Industrial IoT (IIoT) applications. IoT is especially useful for the interconnection of physical devices through networks, which allow for sharing data and for controlling their capabilities in real time, which is ideal for applications like the ones provided for home automation and industrial scenarios. Nonetheless, both of these fields require solving the challenges that suppose integrating automation mechanisms, heterogeneous hardware (e.g., sensors, actuators, and networking devices), and new communications technologies, all of which have to be aimed at improving the performance, energy-efficiency, security, comfort, and safety in our homes and industrial facilities.

This Special Issue looks for novel contributions related to the application of IoT and IIoT to smart homes and industrial applications. The main topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Intelligent sensors and actuators for smart home and smart building applications.
  • New hardware and communications technologies for smart home and smart building applications.
  • New communication architectures for smart home and smart building applications.
  • Technologies for the integration of smart homes and smart buildings within a smart city ecosystem.
  • Security and privacy mechanisms for smart home and industrial applications.
  • Energy-efficient solutions for smart home and industrial applications.
  • Smart home and smart building IoT applications.
  • Novel IIoT applications for industrial environments.
  • Smart sensors and actuators for Industry 4.0.
  • IIoT sensors and actuators for advanced industrial applications.
  • Cyber–physical systems for industrial applications.

Prof. Dr. Tiago M. Fernández-Caramés
Dr. Paula Fraga-Lamas
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sensors is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • IoT
  • IIoT
  • Smart homes
  • Smart buildings
  • Industrial applications
  • Industry 4.0
  • Home automation
  • Smart sensors
  • CPS
  • Smart cities

Published Papers (21 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 5451 KiB  
Article
Are You Wearing a Mask? Detecting If a Person Wears a Mask Using a Wristband
by Constantino Msigwa, Seungwoo Baek, Denis Bernard and Jaeseok Yun
Sensors 2022, 22(5), 1745; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/s22051745 - 23 Feb 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1979
Abstract
Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) has posed a serious threat to the lives and health of the majority of people worldwide. Since the early days of the outbreak, South Korea’s government and citizens have made persistent efforts to provide effective prevention against further spread of [...] Read more.
Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) has posed a serious threat to the lives and health of the majority of people worldwide. Since the early days of the outbreak, South Korea’s government and citizens have made persistent efforts to provide effective prevention against further spread of the disease. In particular, the participation of individual citizens in complying with the necessary code of conduct to prevent spread of the infection, through measures such as social distancing and mask wearing, is as instrumental as the geographical tracking of the trajectory of the infected. In this paper, we propose an activity recognition method based on a wristband equipped with an IR array and inertial measurement unit (IMU) to detect individual compliance with codes of personal hygiene management, such as mask wearing, which are recommended to prevent the spread of infectious diseases. The results of activity recognition were comparatively analyzed by applying conventional machine learning algorithms and convolutional neural networks (CNNs) to the IMU time series and IR array thermal images collected from 25 subjects. When CNN and 24 × 32 thermal images were used, 97.8% accuracy was achieved (best performance), and when 6 × 8 low-resolution thermal images were used, similar performance with 97.1% accuracy was obtained. In the case of using IMU, the performance of activity recognition was lower than that obtained with the IR array, but an accuracy of 93% was achieved even in the case of applying machine learning algorithms, indicating that it is more suitable for wearable devices with low computational capability. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Internet of Things for Smart Homes and Industrial Application)
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18 pages, 23850 KiB  
Article
An All-in-One Vehicle Type and License Plate Recognition System Using YOLOv4
by Se-Ho Park, Saet-Byeol Yu, Jeong-Ah Kim and Hyoseok Yoon
Sensors 2022, 22(3), 921; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/s22030921 - 25 Jan 2022
Cited by 12 | Viewed by 6514
Abstract
In smart surveillance and urban mobility applications, camera-equipped embedded platforms with deep learning technology have demonstrated applicability and effectiveness in identifying various targets. These use cases can be found in a variety of contexts and locations. It is critical to collect relevant data [...] Read more.
In smart surveillance and urban mobility applications, camera-equipped embedded platforms with deep learning technology have demonstrated applicability and effectiveness in identifying various targets. These use cases can be found in a variety of contexts and locations. It is critical to collect relevant data from the location where the application will be deployed. In this paper, we propose an integrated vehicle type and license plate recognition system using YOLOv4, which consists of vehicle type detection, license plate detection, and license plate character detection to better support the context of Korean vehicles in multilane highway and urban environments. Using our dataset of one to four multilane images, our system detected six vehicle classes and license plates with mAP of 98.0%, 94.0%, 97.1%, and 84.6%, respectively. On our dataset and a publicly available open dataset, our system demonstrated mAP of 99.3% and 99.4% for the detected license plates, respectively. From 4K high-resolution images, our system was able to detect minuscule license plates as small as 100 pixels wide. We believe that our system can be used in densely populated regions to address the high demands for enhanced visual sensitivity in smart cities and Internet-of-Things. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Internet of Things for Smart Homes and Industrial Application)
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16 pages, 5997 KiB  
Article
Status Estimation and In-Process Connection of Kanbans Using BLE Beacons and LPWA Network to Implement Intra-Traceability for the Kanban System
by Kosuke Shima, Masahiro Yamaguchi, Takumi Yoshida and Takanobu Otsuka
Sensors 2021, 21(15), 5038; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/s21155038 - 25 Jul 2021
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2482
Abstract
IoT-based measurement systems for manufacturing have been widely implemented. As components that can be implemented at low cost, BLE beacons have been used in several systems developed in previous research. In this work, we focus on the Kanban system, which is a measure [...] Read more.
IoT-based measurement systems for manufacturing have been widely implemented. As components that can be implemented at low cost, BLE beacons have been used in several systems developed in previous research. In this work, we focus on the Kanban system, which is a measure used in manufacturing strategy. The Kanban system emphasizes inventory management and is used to produce only required amounts. In the Kanban system, the Kanban cards are rotated through the factory along with the products, and when the products change to a different process route, the Kanban card is removed from the products and the products are assigned to another Kanban. For this reason, a single Kanban cannot trace products from plan to completion. In this work, we propose a system that uses a Bluetooth low energy (BLE) beacon to connect Kanbans in different routes but assigned to the same products. The proposed method estimates the beacon status of whether the Kanban is inside or outside a postbox, which can then be computed by a micro controller at low computational cost. In addition, the system connects the Kanbans using the beacons as paired connection targets. In an experiment, we confirmed that the system connected 70% of the beacons accurately. We also confirmed that the system could connect the Kanbans at a small implementation cost. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Internet of Things for Smart Homes and Industrial Application)
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25 pages, 1409 KiB  
Article
Identifying and Mitigating Phishing Attack Threats in IoT Use Cases Using a Threat Modelling Approach
by Syed Ghazanfar Abbas, Ivan Vaccari, Faisal Hussain, Shahzaib Zahid, Ubaid Ullah Fayyaz, Ghalib A. Shah, Taimur Bakhshi and Enrico Cambiaso
Sensors 2021, 21(14), 4816; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/s21144816 - 14 Jul 2021
Cited by 22 | Viewed by 6862
Abstract
Internet of things (IoT) is a technology that enables our daily life objects to connect on the Internet and to send and receive data for a meaningful purpose. In recent years, IoT has led to many revolutions in almost every sector of our [...] Read more.
Internet of things (IoT) is a technology that enables our daily life objects to connect on the Internet and to send and receive data for a meaningful purpose. In recent years, IoT has led to many revolutions in almost every sector of our society. Nevertheless, security threats to IoT devices and networks are relentlessly disruptive, because of the proliferation of Internet technologies. Phishing is one of the most prevalent threats to all Internet users, in which attackers aim to fraudulently extract sensitive information of a user or system, using fictitious emails, websites, etc. With the rapid increase in IoT devices, attackers are targeting IoT devices such as security cameras, smart cars, etc., and perpetrating phishing attacks to gain control over such vulnerable devices for malicious purposes. In recent decades, such scams have been spreading, and they have become increasingly advanced over time. By following this trend, in this paper, we propose a threat modelling approach to identify and mitigate the cyber-threats that can cause phishing attacks. We considered two significant IoT use cases, i.e., smart autonomous vehicular system and smart home. The proposed work is carried out by applying the STRIDE threat modelling approach to both use cases, to disclose all the potential threats that may cause a phishing attack. The proposed threat modelling approach can support the IoT researchers, engineers, and IoT cyber-security policymakers in securing and protecting the potential threats in IoT devices and systems in the early design stages, to ensure the secure deployment of IoT devices in critical infrastructures. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Internet of Things for Smart Homes and Industrial Application)
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23 pages, 5106 KiB  
Article
A Secure and Scalable Smart Home Gateway to Bridge Technology Fragmentation
by Ezequiel Simeoni, Eugenio Gaeta, Rebeca I. García-Betances, Dave Raggett, Alejandro M. Medrano-Gil, Diego F. Carvajal-Flores, Giuseppe Fico, María Fernanda Cabrera-Umpiérrez and María Teresa Arredondo Waldmeyer
Sensors 2021, 21(11), 3587; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/s21113587 - 21 May 2021
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 3158
Abstract
Internet of Things (IoT) technologies are already playing an important role in our daily activities as we use them and rely on them to increase our abilities, connectivity, productivity and quality of life. However, there are still obstacles to achieving a unique interface [...] Read more.
Internet of Things (IoT) technologies are already playing an important role in our daily activities as we use them and rely on them to increase our abilities, connectivity, productivity and quality of life. However, there are still obstacles to achieving a unique interface able to transfer full control to users given the diversity of protocols, properties and specifications in the varied IoT ecosystem. Particularly for the case of home automation systems, there is a high degree of fragmentation that limits interoperability, increasing the complexity and costs of developments and holding back their real potential of positively impacting users. In this article, we propose implementing W3C’s Web of Things Standard supported by home automation ontologies, such as SAREF and UniversAAL, to deploy the Living Lab Gateway that allows users to consume all IoT devices from a smart home, including those physically wired and using KNX® technology. This work, developed under the framework of the EC funded Plan4Act project, includes relevant features such as security, authentication and authorization provision, dynamic configuration and injection of devices, and devices abstraction and mapping into ontologies. Its deployment is explained in two scenarios to show the achieved technology’s degree of integration, the code simplicity for developers and the system’s scalability: one consisted of external hardware interfacing with the smart home, and the other of the injection of a new sensing device. A test was executed providing metrics that indicate that the Living Lab Gateway is competitive in terms of response performance. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Internet of Things for Smart Homes and Industrial Application)
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27 pages, 4792 KiB  
Article
Broadband Power Line Communication for Integration of Energy Sensors within a Smart City Ecosystem
by Jan Slacik, Petr Mlynek, Martin Rusz, Petr Musil, Lukas Benesl and Michal Ptacek
Sensors 2021, 21(10), 3402; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/s21103402 - 13 May 2021
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 3255
Abstract
The popularity of the Power Line Communication (PLC) system has decreased due to significant deficiencies in the technology itself, even though new wire installation is not required. In particular, regarding the request for high-speed throughput to fulfill smart-grid requirements, Broadband Power Line (BPLC) [...] Read more.
The popularity of the Power Line Communication (PLC) system has decreased due to significant deficiencies in the technology itself, even though new wire installation is not required. In particular, regarding the request for high-speed throughput to fulfill smart-grid requirements, Broadband Power Line (BPLC) can be considered. This paper approaches PLC technology as an object of simulation experimentation in the Broadband Power Line Communication (BPLC) area. Several experimental measurements in a real environment are also given. This paper demonstrates these experimental simulation results as potential mechanisms for creating a complex simulation tool for various PLC technologies focusing on communication with end devices such as sensors and meters. The aim is to demonstrate the potential and limits of BPLC technology for implementation in Smart Grids or Smart Metering applications. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Internet of Things for Smart Homes and Industrial Application)
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14 pages, 4071 KiB  
Article
A Fully Open-Source Approach to Intelligent Edge Computing: AGILE’s Lesson
by Massimo Vecchio, Paolo Azzoni, Andreas Menychtas, Ilias Maglogiannis and Alexander Felfernig
Sensors 2021, 21(4), 1309; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/s21041309 - 12 Feb 2021
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 2901
Abstract
In this paper, we describe the main outcomes of AGILE (acronym for “Adaptive Gateways for dIverse muLtiple Environments”), an EU-funded project that recently delivered a modular hardware and software framework conceived to address the fragmented market of embedded, multi-service, adaptive gateways for the [...] Read more.
In this paper, we describe the main outcomes of AGILE (acronym for “Adaptive Gateways for dIverse muLtiple Environments”), an EU-funded project that recently delivered a modular hardware and software framework conceived to address the fragmented market of embedded, multi-service, adaptive gateways for the Internet of Things (IoT). Its main goal is to provide a low-cost solution capable of supporting proof-of-concept implementations and rapid prototyping methodologies for both consumer and industrial IoT markets. AGILE allows developers to implement and deliver a complete (software and hardware) IoT solution for managing non-IP IoT devices through a multi-service gateway. Moreover, it simplifies the access of startups to the IoT market, not only providing an efficient and cost-effective solution for industries but also allowing end-users to customize and extend it according to their specific requirements. This flexibility is the result of the joint experience of established organizations in the project consortium already promoting the principles of openness, both at the software and hardware levels. We illustrate how the AGILE framework can provide a cost-effective yet solid and highly customizable, technological foundation supporting the configuration, deployment, and assessment of two distinct showcases, namely a quantified self application for individual consumers, and an air pollution monitoring station for industrial settings. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Internet of Things for Smart Homes and Industrial Application)
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18 pages, 2267 KiB  
Article
An Automatic Aggregator of Power Flexibility in Smart Buildings Using Software Based Orchestration
by Dharmendra Sharma, Jari Rehu, Klaus Känsälä and Heikki Ailisto
Sensors 2021, 21(3), 867; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/s21030867 - 28 Jan 2021
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2560
Abstract
This paper presents a software-based modular and hierarchical building energy management system (BEMS) to control the power consumption in sensor-equipped buildings. In addition, the need of this type of solution is also highlighted by presenting the worldwide trends of thermal energy end use [...] Read more.
This paper presents a software-based modular and hierarchical building energy management system (BEMS) to control the power consumption in sensor-equipped buildings. In addition, the need of this type of solution is also highlighted by presenting the worldwide trends of thermal energy end use in buildings and peak power problems. Buildings are critical component of smart grid environments and bottom-up BEMS solutions are need of the hour to optimize the consumption and to provide consumption side flexibility. This system is able to aggregate the controls of the all-controllable resources in building to realize its flexible power capacity. This system provides a solution for consumer to aggregate the controls of ‘behind-the-meter’ small loads in short response and provide ‘deep’ demand-side flexibility. This system is capable of discovery, status check, control and management of networked loads. The main novelty of this solution is that it can handle the heterogeneity of the installed hardware system along with time bound changes in the load device network and its scalability; resulting in low maintenance requirements after deployment. The control execution latency (including data logging) of this BEMS system for an external control signal is less than one second per connected load. In addition, the system is capable of overriding the external control signal in order to maintain consumer coziness within the comfort temperature thresholds. This system provides a way forward in future for the estimation of the energy stored in the buildings in the form of heat/temperature and use buildings as temporary batteries when electricity supply is constrained or abundant. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Internet of Things for Smart Homes and Industrial Application)
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23 pages, 774 KiB  
Article
Formulation and Performance Analysis of Broadband and Narrowband OFDM-Based PLC Systems
by Fausto García-Gangoso, Manuel Blanco-Velasco and Fernando Cruz-Roldán
Sensors 2021, 21(1), 290; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/s21010290 - 04 Jan 2021
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2554
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to formulate the physical layer of the broadband and narrowband power line communication (PLC) systems described in standards IEEE 1901 and IEEE 1901.2, which address new communication technologies over electrical networks for Smart Grid and Internet of [...] Read more.
The aim of this paper is to formulate the physical layer of the broadband and narrowband power line communication (PLC) systems described in standards IEEE 1901 and IEEE 1901.2, which address new communication technologies over electrical networks for Smart Grid and Internet of Things applications. Specifically, this paper presents a mathematical formulation by means of matrices of a transmitter and receiver system based on windowed OFDM. The proposed formulation is essential for obtaining the input–output relation, as well as an analysis of the interference present in the system. It is very useful for simulating PLC systems using software designed to operate primarily on whole matrices and arrays, such as Matlab. In addition, it eases the analysis and design of different receiver configurations, simply by modifying or adding a matrix. Since the relevant standards only describe the blocks corresponding to the transmitter, and leave the set-up of the receiver open to the manufacturer, we analysed four different possible schemes that include window functions in different configurations. In simulations, the behaviour of each of these schemes is analysed in terms of bit error and achievable data rates using artificial and real noises. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Internet of Things for Smart Homes and Industrial Application)
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17 pages, 689 KiB  
Article
Possibilities of Broadband Power Line Communications for Smart Home and Smart Building Applications
by Petr Mlýnek, Martin Rusz, Lukáš Benešl, Ján Sláčik and Petr Musil
Sensors 2021, 21(1), 240; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/s21010240 - 01 Jan 2021
Cited by 24 | Viewed by 3445
Abstract
Broadband Power Line communication is considered as one of possible communication technologies for the buildings communication infrastructure in the concept of Smart Building. The possible applications where BPL (Broadband over Power Lines) solution can be used for communication in the concept of Smart [...] Read more.
Broadband Power Line communication is considered as one of possible communication technologies for the buildings communication infrastructure in the concept of Smart Building. The possible applications where BPL (Broadband over Power Lines) solution can be used for communication in the concept of Smart Building are Power Quality (PQ) measurement, Electric Vehicle or Micro Grids and Distribution Generation (DG). This article should help to determine clear performance possibilities of BPL for an implementation in Smart Building especially due to a large amount of overhead caused by cybersecurity and the protocol overhead. The possibilities of BPL were measured with five different BPL solutions. The results show a sufficient throughput on the application layer for Smart Building application, because, in the literature, various throughput limits are introduced. According to related work, there are missing measurements on the application layer for laboratory conditions as well as compared with real field measurements. In this article, we also exploit our novel idea of a broadband PLC (Power Line Communication) modem integrated into an electrical outlet. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Internet of Things for Smart Homes and Industrial Application)
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21 pages, 10108 KiB  
Article
Advanced Supervision of Smart Buildings Using a Novel Open-Source Control Platform
by Peter Minarčík, Hynek Procházka and Martin Gulan
Sensors 2021, 21(1), 160; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/s21010160 - 29 Dec 2020
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 3220
Abstract
Gathering data and monitoring performance are at the heart of energy efficiency and comfort securing strategies in smart buildings. Therefore, it is crucial to present the obtained data to the user or administrator of such a building in an appropriate form. Moreover, evaluating [...] Read more.
Gathering data and monitoring performance are at the heart of energy efficiency and comfort securing strategies in smart buildings. Therefore, it is crucial to present the obtained data to the user or administrator of such a building in an appropriate form. Moreover, evaluating the data in real time not only helps to maintain comfort, but also allows for a timely response from the user or operator to a possible fault. Continuous online monitoring and analysis of process behaviour, which is referred to as advanced supervision, is addressed in this paper by developing a procedure that will form an artificial operator autonomously supervising process. After introducing several techniques that are used for signal analysis, we propose an approach to advanced supervision of processes in smart buildings or other industrial control systems. The developed procedure is implemented on a control system platform that is particularly suitable for this purpose. Moreover, this platform includes a framework that provides support for the implementation of advanced control techniques and it is based on open-source tools, which is rarely seen in industrial applications. The developed advanced supervision procedure has been tested in simulation as well as in a practical case study using a real two-storey family house. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Internet of Things for Smart Homes and Industrial Application)
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25 pages, 7211 KiB  
Article
Design and Evaluation of a Solo-Resident Smart Home Testbed for Mobility Pattern Monitoring and Behavioural Assessment
by Mohsen Shirali, Jose-Luis Bayo-Monton, Carlos Fernandez-Llatas, Mona Ghassemian and Vicente Traver Salcedo
Sensors 2020, 20(24), 7167; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/s20247167 - 14 Dec 2020
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2570
Abstract
Aging population increase demands for solutions to help the solo-resident elderly live independently. Unobtrusive data collection in a smart home environment can monitor and assess elderly residents’ health state based on changes in their mobility patterns. In this paper, a smart home system [...] Read more.
Aging population increase demands for solutions to help the solo-resident elderly live independently. Unobtrusive data collection in a smart home environment can monitor and assess elderly residents’ health state based on changes in their mobility patterns. In this paper, a smart home system testbed setup for a solo-resident house is discussed and evaluated. We use paired Passive infra-red (PIR) sensors at each entry of a house and capture the resident’s activities to model mobility patterns. We present the required testbed implementation phases, i.e., deployment, post-deployment analysis, re-deployment, and conduct behavioural data analysis to highlight the usability of collected data from a smart home. The main contribution of this work is to apply intelligence from a post-deployment process mining technique (namely, the parallel activity log inference algorithm (PALIA)) to find the best configuration for data collection in order to minimise the errors. Based on the post-deployment analysis, a re-deployment phase is performed, and results show the improvement of collected data accuracy in re-deployment phase from 81.57% to 95.53%. To complete our analysis, we apply the well-known CASAS project dataset as a reference to conduct a comparison with our collected results which shows a similar pattern. The collected data further is processed to use the level of activity of the solo-resident for a behaviour assessment. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Internet of Things for Smart Homes and Industrial Application)
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23 pages, 909 KiB  
Article
Enterprise Security for the Internet of Things (IoT): Lightweight Bootstrapping with EAP-NOOB
by Aleksi Peltonen, Eduardo Inglés, Sampsa Latvala, Dan Garcia-Carrillo, Mohit Sethi and Tuomas Aura
Sensors 2020, 20(21), 6101; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/s20216101 - 27 Oct 2020
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 3384
Abstract
The emergence of radio technologies, such as Zigbee, Z-Wave, and Bluetooth Mesh, has transformed simple physical devices into smart objects that can understand and react to their environment. Devices, such as light bulbs, door locks, and window blinds, can now be connected to, [...] Read more.
The emergence of radio technologies, such as Zigbee, Z-Wave, and Bluetooth Mesh, has transformed simple physical devices into smart objects that can understand and react to their environment. Devices, such as light bulbs, door locks, and window blinds, can now be connected to, and remotely controlled from, the Internet. Given the resource-constrained nature of many of these devices, they have typically relied on the use of universal global shared secrets for the initial bootstrapping and commissioning phase. Such a scheme has obvious security weaknesses and it also creates undesirable walled-gardens where devices of one ecosystem do not inter-operate with the other. In this paper, we investigate whether the standard Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) framework can be used for secure bootstrapping of resource-constrained devices. EAP naturally provides the benefits of per-device individual credentials, straightforward revocation, and isolation of devices. In particular, we look at the Nimble out-of-band authentication for EAP (EAP-NOOB) as a candidate EAP authentication method. EAP-NOOB greatly simplifies deployment of such devices as it does not require them to be pre-provisioned with credentials of any sort. Based on our implementation experience on off-the-shelf hardware, we demonstrate that lightweight EAP-NOOB is indeed a way forward to securely bootstrap such devices. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Internet of Things for Smart Homes and Industrial Application)
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19 pages, 7569 KiB  
Article
Fostering Sustainability through Visualization Techniques for Real-Time IoT Data: A Case Study Based on Gas Turbines for Electricity Production
by Ana Lavalle, Miguel A. Teruel, Alejandro Maté and Juan Trujillo
Sensors 2020, 20(16), 4556; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/s20164556 - 14 Aug 2020
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2867
Abstract
Improving sustainability is a key concern for industrial development. Industry has recently been benefiting from the rise of IoT technologies, leading to improvements in the monitoring and breakdown prevention of industrial equipment. In order to properly achieve this monitoring and prevention, visualization techniques [...] Read more.
Improving sustainability is a key concern for industrial development. Industry has recently been benefiting from the rise of IoT technologies, leading to improvements in the monitoring and breakdown prevention of industrial equipment. In order to properly achieve this monitoring and prevention, visualization techniques are of paramount importance. However, the visualization of real-time IoT sensor data has always been challenging, especially when such data are originated by sensors of different natures. In order to tackle this issue, we propose a methodology that aims to help users to visually locate and understand the failures that could arise in a production process.This methodology collects, in a guided manner, user goals and the requirements of the production process, analyzes the incoming data from IoT sensors and automatically derives the most suitable visualization type for each context. This approach will help users to identify if the production process is running as well as expected; thus, it will enable them to make the most sustainable decision in each situation. Finally, in order to assess the suitability of our proposal, a case study based on gas turbines for electricity generation is presented. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Internet of Things for Smart Homes and Industrial Application)
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16 pages, 995 KiB  
Article
SlowITe, a Novel Denial of Service Attack Affecting MQTT
by Ivan Vaccari, Maurizio Aiello and Enrico Cambiaso
Sensors 2020, 20(10), 2932; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/s20102932 - 21 May 2020
Cited by 47 | Viewed by 12584
Abstract
Security of the Internet of Things is a crucial topic, due to the criticality of the networks and the sensitivity of exchanged data. In this paper, we target the Message Queue Telemetry Transport (MQTT) protocol used in IoT environments for communication between IoT [...] Read more.
Security of the Internet of Things is a crucial topic, due to the criticality of the networks and the sensitivity of exchanged data. In this paper, we target the Message Queue Telemetry Transport (MQTT) protocol used in IoT environments for communication between IoT devices. We exploit a specific weakness of MQTT which was identified during our research, allowing the client to configure the behavior of the server. In order to validate the possibility to exploit such vulnerability, we propose SlowITe, a novel low-rate denial of service attack aimed to target MQTT through low-rate techniques. We validate SlowITe against real MQTT services, considering both plain text and encrypted communications and comparing the effects of the threat when targeting different daemons. Results show that the attack is successful and it is able to exploit the identified vulnerability to lead a DoS on the victim with limited attack resources. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Internet of Things for Smart Homes and Industrial Application)
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19 pages, 2109 KiB  
Article
Breaking Down the Compatibility Problem in Smart Homes: A Dynamically Updatable Gateway Platform
by Linh-An Phan and Taehong Kim
Sensors 2020, 20(10), 2783; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/s20102783 - 14 May 2020
Cited by 14 | Viewed by 4442
Abstract
Smart home is one of the most promising applications of the Internet of Things. Although there have been studies about this technology in recent years, the adoption rate of smart homes is still low. One of the largest barriers is technological fragmentation within [...] Read more.
Smart home is one of the most promising applications of the Internet of Things. Although there have been studies about this technology in recent years, the adoption rate of smart homes is still low. One of the largest barriers is technological fragmentation within the smart home ecosystem. Currently, there are many protocols used in a connected home, increasing the confusion of consumers when choosing a product for their house. One possible solution for this fragmentation is to make a gateway to handle the diverse protocols as a central hub in the home. However, this solution brings about another issue for manufacturers: compatibility. Because of the various smart devices on the market, supporting all possible devices in one gateway is also an enormous challenge. In this paper, we propose a software architecture for a gateway in a smart home system to solve the compatibility problem. By creating a mechanism to dynamically download and update a device profile from a server, the gateway can easily handle new devices. Moreover, the proposed gateway also supports unified control over heterogeneous networks. We implemented a prototype to prove the feasibility of the proposed gateway architecture and evaluated its performance from the viewpoint of message execution time over heterogeneous networks, as well as the latency for device profile downloads and updates, and the overhead needed for handling unknown commands. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Internet of Things for Smart Homes and Industrial Application)
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28 pages, 8150 KiB  
Article
Enhancing Energy Saving in Smart Farming through Aggregation and Partition Aware IoT Routing Protocol
by Karim Fathallah, Mohamed Amine Abid and Nejib Ben Hadj-Alouane
Sensors 2020, 20(10), 2760; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/s20102760 - 12 May 2020
Cited by 27 | Viewed by 3314
Abstract
Internet of things (IoT) for precision agriculture or Smart Farming (SF) is an emerging area of application. It consists essentially of deploying wireless sensor networks (WSNs), composed of IP-enabled sensor nodes, in a partitioned farmland area. When the surface, diversity, and complexity of [...] Read more.
Internet of things (IoT) for precision agriculture or Smart Farming (SF) is an emerging area of application. It consists essentially of deploying wireless sensor networks (WSNs), composed of IP-enabled sensor nodes, in a partitioned farmland area. When the surface, diversity, and complexity of the farm increases, the number of sensing nodes increases, generating heavy exchange of data and messages, and thus leading to network congestion, radio interference, and high energy consumption. In this work, we propose a novel routing algorithm extending the well known IPv6 Routing Protocol for Low power and Lossy Networks (RPL), the standard routing protocol used for IPv6 over Low-Power Wireless Personal Area Networks (6LoWPAN). It is referred to as the Partition Aware-RPL (PA-RPL) and improves the performance of the standard RPL. In contrast to RPL, the proposed technique builds a routing topology enabling efficient in-network data aggregation, hence dramatically reducing data traffic through the network. Performance analysis of a typical/realistic precision agriculture case, considering the potato pest prevention from the well-known late blight disease, shows that PA-RPL improves energy saving up to 40 % compared to standard RPL. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Internet of Things for Smart Homes and Industrial Application)
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25 pages, 8861 KiB  
Article
Renovation of Automation System Based on Industrial Internet of Things: A Case Study of a Sewage Treatment Plant
by Wanhao Zhu, Zhidong Wang and Zifan Zhang
Sensors 2020, 20(8), 2175; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/s20082175 - 12 Apr 2020
Cited by 27 | Viewed by 10978
Abstract
The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is of great significance to the improvement of industrial efficiency and quality, and to reduce industrial costs and resources. However, there are few openly-reported practical project applications based on the IIoT up to now. For legacy automation [...] Read more.
The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is of great significance to the improvement of industrial efficiency and quality, and to reduce industrial costs and resources. However, there are few openly-reported practical project applications based on the IIoT up to now. For legacy automation devices in traditional industry, it is especially challenging to realize the upgrading of industrial automation adopting the IIoT technology with less investment. Based on the practical engineering experience, this paper introduces the automation renovation of a sewage treatment plant. The legacy automation devices are upgraded by the central controller of a STM32 processor (Produced by STMicroelectronics company, located in Geneva, Switzerland), and the WeChatApplet (Developed by Tencent company, located in Shenzhen, China) is used as the extended host computer. A set of remote monitoring and control systems of sewage treatment based on the IIoT is built to realize the wide-area monitoring and control of sewage treatment. The paper describes the field hardware system, wide-area monitoring and control application program, management cloud platform and security technologies in detail. The actual operation results show that the monitoring system has the requirements of high accuracy, good real-time performance, reliable operation and low cost. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Internet of Things for Smart Homes and Industrial Application)
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22 pages, 965 KiB  
Article
Lightweight Authentication Protocol for M2M Communications of Resource-Constrained Devices in Industrial Internet of Things
by Evangelina Lara, Leocundo Aguilar, Mauricio A. Sanchez and Jesús A. García
Sensors 2020, 20(2), 501; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/s20020501 - 16 Jan 2020
Cited by 63 | Viewed by 6892
Abstract
The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) consists of sensors, networks, and services to connect and control production systems. Its benefits include supply chain monitoring and machine failure detection. However, it has many vulnerabilities, such as industrial espionage and sabotage. Furthermore, many IIoT devices [...] Read more.
The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) consists of sensors, networks, and services to connect and control production systems. Its benefits include supply chain monitoring and machine failure detection. However, it has many vulnerabilities, such as industrial espionage and sabotage. Furthermore, many IIoT devices are resource-constrained, which impedes the use of traditional security services for them. Authentication allows devices to be confident of each other’s identity, preventing some security attacks. Many authentication protocols have been proposed for IIoT; however, they have high computing requirements not viable to resource-constrained devices, or they have been found insecure. In this paper, an authentication protocol for resource-constrained IIoT devices is proposed. It is based on the lightweight operations xor, addition, and subtraction, and a hash function. Also, only four messages are exchanged between the principals to authenticate. It has a low execution-time and communication-cost. Its security was successfully assessed with the formal methods Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications (AVISPA) tool and Burrows–Abadi–Needham (BAN) logic, together with an informal analysis of its resistance to known attacks. Its performance and security were compared with state-of-the-art protocols, resulting in a good performance for resource-constrained IIoT devices, and higher security similar to computational expensive schemes. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Internet of Things for Smart Homes and Industrial Application)
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13 pages, 3614 KiB  
Article
A Novel Finger-Controlled Passive RFID Tag Design for Human–Machine Interaction
by Qi Liu, Hui Li, Yu-Feng Yu, Wen-Sheng Zhao and Shuai Zhang
Sensors 2019, 19(23), 5125; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/s19235125 - 22 Nov 2019
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 3606
Abstract
Radio frequency identification (RFID) has shown its potential in human–machine interaction thanks to its inherent function of identification and relevant physical information of signals, but complex data processing and undesirable input accuracy restrict its application and promotion in practical use. This paper proposes [...] Read more.
Radio frequency identification (RFID) has shown its potential in human–machine interaction thanks to its inherent function of identification and relevant physical information of signals, but complex data processing and undesirable input accuracy restrict its application and promotion in practical use. This paper proposes a novel finger-controlled passive RFID tag design for human–machine interaction. The tag antenna is based on a dipole antenna with a separated T-match structure, which is able to adjust the state of the tag by the press of a finger. The state of the proposed tag can be recognized directly by the code received by the RFID reader, and no complex data processing is needed. Since the code is hardly affected by surroundings, the proposed tag is suitable to be used as a wireless switch or control button in multiple scenarios. Moreover, arrays of the proposed tag with rational tag arrangements could contribute to a series of manual control devices, such as a wireless keyboard, a remote controller, and a wireless gamepad, without batteries. A 3 × 4 array of the finger-controlled tag is presented to constitute a simple passive RFID keyboard as an example of the applications of the proposed tag array and it refers to the arrangement of a keypad and can achieve precise, convenient, quick, and practical commands and text input into machines by pressing the tags with fingers. Simulations and measurements of the proposed tag and tag array have been carried out to validate their performances in human–machine interaction. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Internet of Things for Smart Homes and Industrial Application)
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17 pages, 783 KiB  
Article
Design and Implementation of a Self-Powered Smart Water Meter
by Xue Jun Li and Peter Han Joo Chong
Sensors 2019, 19(19), 4177; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/s19194177 - 26 Sep 2019
Cited by 41 | Viewed by 8937
Abstract
Smart cities require interactive management of water supply networks and water meters play an important role in such a task. As compared to fully mechanical water meters, electromechanical water meters or fully electronic water meters can collect real-time information through automatic meter reading [...] Read more.
Smart cities require interactive management of water supply networks and water meters play an important role in such a task. As compared to fully mechanical water meters, electromechanical water meters or fully electronic water meters can collect real-time information through automatic meter reading (AMR), which makes them more suitable for smart cities applications. In this paper, we first study the design principles of existing water meters, and then present our design and implementation of a self-powered smart water meter. The proposed water meter is based on a water turbine generator, which serves for two purposes: (i) to sense the water flow through adaptive signal processing performed on the generated voltage; and (ii) to produce electricity to charge batteries for the smart meter to function properly. In particular, we present the design considerations and implementation details. The wireless transceiver is integrated in the proposed water meter so that it can provide real-time water flow information. In addition, a mobile phone application is designed to provide a user with a convenient tool for water usage monitoring. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Internet of Things for Smart Homes and Industrial Application)
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