Future Home

Wireless Home Network

Objectives 
Many technologies known from facility management are just about to enter the average homes for so-called home automation purposes. In addition, there is the desire to integrate other home devices like consumer electronics and white ware with home appliances into a single, coherent home network. Even all these technologies exist, the integration of the different islands of devices within a single network is still an open issue. Another hindering factor is the "no new wires" requirement. The Future Home project therefore aims to create a solid, secure, user friendly home networking concept based on wireless networking technologies.

Key issues
The key issues to be addressed by the project are:

• Specification of a wireless home networking architecture based on IPv6 and UPnP as common middleware
• Definition of generic device interfaces that enable home appliances, consumer electronics devices and various types of terminals to be connected to the wireless network in a plug&play manner
• Provision of enabling technologies for ambient intelligence
• Validation of the proposed solution by building a prototype of the wireless intelligent home network
• Identification of market-driven business models

FOKUS Contribution  
Within Future Home, FhG FOKUS is responsible for the following main activities:

• UPnP as common device middleware
• HAVi/UPnP Gateway
• Rule Service as enabling technology for ambient intelligence scenarios
• Integration of the car into the home network