Ecohabit

Laura Cerrito, Maunil Sanghavi, Alexis Moore, Daniel Delaney, Justin Frech, Assaf Kipnis

Ecohabit

●Department of Energy Sponsored

●Competition

●Build a energy efficient house

●20 teams from around the world

●Promote “Green” Living

●Educate public about clean energy

●10 contests● Juried

●Measured

Solar Decathlon

Ecohabit

●60+ Students over 10 majors

●1.5 years to plan and build

●2 Bedroom/1 Bath House

●Modular construction

Ecohabit

Ecohabit

Ecohabit

●Build the “brain” of the house

●Connect to different sensors

●Aggregate and display data

●Control lights

●Mobile applications

●“Teach” the user

●Security

House Intelligance Team

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Architecture Diagram

Website

Application

CentralModule

Lights

Brultech

Data

base

Inte

ractio

n La

yer

Central Module

Communication LayerCalculatio

nModule

Learning Module

MongoDB

Insteon Hub

Brultech Interface

Layer

Ecohabit

●Our software is able to run without a GUI present

●For testing and troubleshooting reasons we have developed a simple web application

●This application is HTML5 and CSS3 compliant and can easily be displayed on most mobile devices

●Our website has an underlying PHP layer

Graphical User Interface (GUI)

Ecohabit

●As members of the Stevens Solar Decathlon any GUI we create had to follow certain style guidelines. ● These guidelines included specific fonts,

colors, logos, and ways to display images and text

●We followed their guide and replicated the layout of the official Ecohabit website

●Our layout provides much less overhead and takes milliseconds to load even while running simulations

Aesthetics

Ecohabit

●Home Page●Displays a model of the house and generic

information about the competition and our part in it.

●Login● The page for homeowners or guests to enter

their information in order to gain control of the house

●Appliances●Displays any appliances that are being

monitored in the Ecohabit house.

●Currently there are 9 Appliances

●Energy Usage●Displays energy produced, consumed, and the

current energy balance

GUI Sections

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Website

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Android application built by the Juniors communicates with API

Functions:

●Turn lights on/off

●Check energy balance

●Check status of appliances in the house

●Get temperature and humidity

●Set desired house temperature

PHP API and Anroid Application

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●NoSQL Database: MongoDB

●No schema allows for flexibility

●Dealing with a variety of different sources of data

●All database interactions controlled through the PHP API layer

Database

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●Used as training data for learning algorithm

●Simulate Variables●Weather

● PV Production

●Appliance Consumption

●HVAC Consumption

●Determine the amount of energy used in each competition

●Calculate the amount of points for each competition

Simulator

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● Insteon Lights● Python

●Central Module ●Built by the Electrical Engineers

●Communicating using the RXTX Java Library

Competition Module

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●Machine learning technique

●End goal is to get the most points

●Recommend actions to take

●Simulate 1000s of different scenarios

●Use 30 years of historical weather data

●Focus on HVAC and PV system● Depends on weather data

●Support for alternate actions

Reinforcement Learning

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●Connects through router

●Written python created executables to call from the java code

●Developed using the Insteon API

Insteon Lights

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● Communicates with our Server, the Smart Detectors, HVAC system, Desiccant System and Brultech Green Eye

● Monitors from Smart Detectors:● Humidity

● Light Intensity

● Occupancy/Motion

● Temperature

● HVAC System/Desiccant System

● Brultech Green Eye● Monitors energy draws from all of the outlets

in the house

Central Module

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●Communication schema between Central Module and Server

●Stream of 8 Byte chunks● 8 "Hex" characters

●Byte 1 represents communication direction

●Byte 1 & 2 represent device type and ID

●Byte 3-7 represent device details●Varies per device type

●Example; 00011842● Temperature of Device 0 is -132.2 C from

Central Module

Serial Communication Protocol

Ecohabit

●Promote security within all aspects of the project (Beyond CS scope)

● Increase marketability

●Provide security mitigation to CIA/P concerns

●Promote security through flexibility throughout the house's lifecycle

●Provide fallback and disaster recovery plans for both competition and home models

Security Goals

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●Confidentiality●Aggregation of user data

●Mobile app usage (User profiles)

● Integrity●Sensor/appliance data flow into sensor

module

●Wired

●Wireless

●Wireless network dependability

●Weather data authentication

●Appliance communication

High Level Security Concerns

Ecohabit

High Level Security Concerns (cont.)

●Availability●Weather station data

●Sensor data

●Sensor module

●Appliance data

●Mobile application

●Wireless network

●Communication with service providers(Power, internet etc.)

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●Privacy●Power consumption aggregation(smart meter)

●Resident movements and habits

●Personal information on network

High Level Security Concerns (cont.)

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Security Strategy4 Layer Defense in Depth

1. Perimeter defense●Firewall (traffic filtering)

●Proxy servers

●DoS attacks

2. OS and application security●Physical access

●Patching

●Service packs

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●Attacks from within the network

●HIDS (Host based IDS)

●Internal firewalls

●Anti-Virus software

●Access policy

4. Data/Information protection●Data encryption

●Transit

●Rest

3. Host protection

Security Strategy4 Layer Defense in Depth