Simulating IoT Frameworks and Devices in the Smart Home

• Main Author: Kalin, John Howard
• Other Authors: Electrical and Computer Engineering
• Format: Others
• Published: Virginia Tech 2017
• Subjects: IoT; Simulation; Smart Home; Network; OpenHAB
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10919/78767

The rapid growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) has led to a situation where individual manufacturers develop their own communication protocols and frameworks that are often incompatible with other systems. Part of this is due to the use of incompatible communication hardware, and part is due to the entrenched proprietary systems. This has created a heterogeneous communication landscape, where it is difficult for devices to coordinate their efforts. To remedy this, a number of IoT Frameworks have been proposed to provide a common interface between IoT devices. There are many approaches to common frameworks, each with their strengths and weaknesses, but there is no clear winner among them. This thesis presents a virtual network testbed for implementing smart home IoT Frameworks. It consists of a simulated home network made up of multiple Virtual Machines (VM), simulated smart home devices and an implementation of the OpenHAB framework to integrate the devices. Simulated devices are designed to be network- accurate representations of actual devices, a LIFX smart lightbulb was developed and an existing Nest thermostat simulation was integrated. The demonstrated setup serves as a proof of concept for the idea of a home network testbed. Such a testbed could allow for the development of new IoT frameworks or the comparison of existing ones, and it could also serve as an education aid to illustrate how smart home IoT devices communicate with one another. === Master of Science