A Ubiquitous Sensor Network for Domestic Energy Monitoring and Energy Consumption Optimization

The current energy dilemma facing the world today expatriates the need for smart grid development, effective home power management & realizing automated smart load distribution systems. In this paper, we introduce you to "Slug" (Smart Plug) sensor network. The "Slug" system is designed for use in occupational and domestic environments as a device that is able to identify the domestic appliance based on the behavior of the current patterns consumed by the appliance. The "Slug" system acts as both a sensor network and the individual node in the network acts as a functioning power strip. The nodes communicate with each other using the existing Power Line architecture of the environment. The use of Power Lines Communication (PLC) makes the system a seamless part of the environment. The issues related to the excessive noise and potential loss of data packets in PLC is solved by using the flood transmission protocol. We believe that the seamless integration of sensor network in its environment is important for being successful in the realm of successful ubiquitous computing. In this paper we discuss the hardware and software architectures of the "Slug" system which look at certain test appliances and explain by what we mean by current consumption patterns and current profiles of appliances. We try our best to come with a possible hypothesis of this behavior and explain the use of classifier algorithm which needs zero training but only a dynamically upgradeable database, thus creating a need of a cloud database connected to all the home servers. The system implementations and description of protocols developed for the appliance controls will also be explained in the paper. Finally we present the need for Flood transmission protocols in PLC and an encryption scheme to deal with security threats in the system.