actuator device configuration by NFC

1. 1
1
Abstract - In the area of building automation, many sensor
or actuator devices are tiny embedded systems which are
installed throughout the building. The sensors gather
information about the current environment (e.g., the
temperature, number of people in a room, etc.) and the
actuators interact with the environment (e.g., controlling
lights, heating, or door access). A central unit controls these
devices (wirelessly or by wire), therefore all devices need at
least a unique id throughout the system, and in many cases
some more configuration or authentication data. New or
replaced devices have to be registered with the central unit in
order to enable correct control. Thus, the person installing a
new device has to prepare it in terms of at least setting an id
before it can be connected to the network. This can be tedious
work, especially for untrained workers. This paper proposes
adding an NFC module as an enhancement for standard
devices. The devices can then be configured on site using a
standard smart phone running an appropriate application.
This eliminates the need to preconfigure devices using a
programmer tool. The presented application enables (first-
time or re-) configuration of wireless embedded devices. The
prototype features an ATmega 328P micro-controller from
Atmel and a M24SR02-Y NFC chip from STMicroelectronics.
I. INTRODUCTION1
Today more and more devices in buildings are connected
and can be controlled from a central unit. Typical controlled
devices are sensors (collecting information about the
environment) or actuators (directly interacting with the
environment).
In the context of building automation, sensors can be
temperature sensors, movement sensors, light sensors,
humidity sensors, light barriers, pressure sensors, etc.
Actuators can be lights, locks on doors or windows, small
motors actually opening doors or windows (like in the case
of a fire, in order to act as a smoke outlet), thermostats
(lowering or increasing room temperature), etc. The devices
usually consist of a micro-controller, a communication unit
(like a transceiver or a network connection), some memory, a
power management unit, and, depending on its purpose,
some sensor or actuator unit.
The devices then communicate wirelessly (e.g., using a
low-power protocol like ZigBee, KNX, Wireless HART, or
EnOcean) or weirdly (e.g., using power line communication
(PLC) or even dedicated cables) with a central control unit.
This unit mainly takes input data from the sensor devices
and sends commands to the actuator devices. If the location
of a sensor device is known then the received sensor value
can be put into a greater context; e.g., the current
temperatures of all rooms in a whole building can be
collected and the current state be used to make decisions on
whether some actuators (like thermostats or window-
openers) should be put into action. For this, of course the
location of those actuators has to be known, too, and the
actuators be individually approached.
Therefore, a broadcast structure will not suffice for such
a setup. For communication, at least a unique id for each
device is required so it can be accessed individually.
.
A. Existing Operation of Devices
If a building is to be equipped with lots of sensors or
actuators, a problem arises in terms of configuring all
these devices. The devices need at least a unique id, and in
many cases, it is important to take note of the location of
the device (like the room number or even an exact
position). In order to avoid tampering with wirelessly
connected devices it is advisable to use some kind of secure
communication, usually by use of cryptographic keys and
algorithms.
The configuration use case occurs throughout the whole
life cycle of a sensor or actuator device:
o deploy, when a device is installed for the first
time
o repairs, when a device is being replaced and a
new device has to take over the same id and
configuration
o reconfiguration, when a device is being moved to
Wireless sensor/actuator device configuration
by NFC
SANDEEP P M PROF.
MADHUKARA S
ECE Dept, S.J.C.I.T CHIKBALLAPURA ASSISTANT
PROFESSOR
Sandeep.pm.sp37@gmail.com ECE Dept, S.J.C.I.T CHIKBALLAPURA
madhukara2008@gmail.com

2. a new location
o deactivation, when a device is being taken down
and unregistered
In all these situations except the very first installation a
secure communication is required to ensure authorized
access only.
Albeit the embedded devices do have a way of
communication (usually a transceiver for wireless devices
or a cable connection for others), this cannot be used for
initial configuration. One of the reasons is the fact that the
new device would not be reachable due to a yet unknown
or even undefined id. Another reason is that most such
communication is performed securely, i.e., based on
cryptographic algorithms and keys; without being given
the keys the device would therefore not be able to
participate in secure communication, and of course it
would be out of the question to allow insecure initial
communication.
B.Proposed operation of devices
This paper proposes a new manual configuration
schema for sensor and actuator devices. Instead of using
small displays, keypads, switches or cables for
configuration, we propose using Near Field
Communication (NFC). NFC is a short range wireless
protocol supported by many different devices today,
including smart phones. NFC chips are cheap because of
their wide distribution. Therefore, sensors and actuators
can be extended with a NFC chip without increasing the
production costs much. These extended devices can be
configured using any NFC writer, including many smart
phones . An application on the smart phone then manages
the different sensors and actuators and their configuration,
making a specific portable configuration device unnecessary
Fig.1.1 A smart phone connecting to a sensor device via
NFC
C. Related Work
The approach of NFC or RFID tags being used for
configuring sensor network devices is not yet that common.
However, the potential of some chip less RFID tags in term
of sensing. Two configurations of chip less sensor tags are
studied and experimented. The first configuration is based
on a chip less RFID tag coded in frequency domain and
transformed into a sensor thanks to a deposit of a
nanomaterial that exhibits high sensitivity to humidity. One
of the advantages of such a transformation is to combine
both identification and sensing in the same and unique
device. Very interesting sensitivity is observed in practice.
The second configuration is based on the use of frequency
coded tag where sensing capability consists in measuring a
flight time. Then several sensors located on an object in
preselected positions are used in order to monitor the
deformation of the object and Shrestha et al. chip less RF
identification (RFID) sensor system platform consisting of
passive chip less RFID sensor tags and specialized reader
has been developed for cyber centric monitoring
applications. The sensor tags are fabricated on a flexible
substrate, and the tag identification (ID) generation circuit
consists of micro strip transmission lines. Two tag
configurations are presented. The first configuration (conf-I)
consists of an antenna and an integrated sensor. The
second configuration (conf-II) consists of an antenna, ID
generation circuit, and a sensor. Use chip less RFID tags
instead of full embedded systems as sensing units. Surpass
and Yoshigoe propose to use NFC as a transmission method
for Wireless sensor networks.
Explored the idea to use NFC for configuration and
encryption key download onto wireless devices when
connecting to previously unknown public Wi-Fi hotspots a
Wi-Fi hotspot authentication system that relies on a Near
Field Communications (NFC) sidechannel to address the
security issues of Wi-Fi configuration and access in public
locations. The proposed solution defines an architecture
that simplifies Wi-Fi access point configuration for the end
user, while simultaneously increasing user security and
privacy in public networks. This is achieved by embedding
network and security information in NFC enabled devices
(e.g. tags) that allow the user to connect to secure wireless
networks without a preestablished relationship.
II. PROTOTYPE
The prototype system consists of two parts:
o A Smarthomatic sensor device which is was
expanded by adding an NFC chip
o An NFC application for Android smart phones
(see Section II-D)

3. 1
3
The first part is implemented using an environment
sensor from the smarthomatic house automation system, the
NFC chip M24SR02-Y from STMicroelectronics and an
Android mobile phone application. The environment
sensor and the NFC chip are described thoroughly in the
next two sections, followed by the prototype description
and the application overview.
A. Smarthomatic Smarthomatic is an open-source house
automation system developed by Uwe Freeze. The design
goals for the project are:
o keep it simple (complexity only when necessary)
o make it similar (differences only when necessary)
o make it easy to build up
o make it cheap
A basic Smarthomatic system consists of a base station
connected to a host computer through RS232, and some
sensor and actuator devices. The base station receives and
transmits Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) encrypted
radio packets from and to the sensors/actuators. The PCBs
and the firmware’s for the base station and all
smarthomatic devices are freely available under the
General Public License (GPL). At the moment, the
following sensors/actuators are available:
o environment sensor for measuring light,
temperature, pressure, and humidity
o a power switch actuator for switching 230V devices
o a RGB dimmer for three Light Emitting Diodes
(LEDs)
o a Soil Moisture Meter
The devices are configured by flashing the
configuration data into the EEPROM using an In-System
Programmer (ISP), an external device connected to a host
computer and the micro-controller
Figure 2.2 Pin layout of a M24SR02-Y NFC chip from
STMicroelectronics .
For the prototype system, the M24SR02-Y NFC chip from
STMicroelectronics is selected. It implements a NFC/RFID
tag with 2Kbit EEPROM. In addition to the radio
interface the M24SR02-Y features an I2C interface
working at up to 1MHz transmission clock. It is
compatible to the I2C interface of the ATmega 328P. The
tag supports NFC Forum Type 4 tag operations based on
the ISO/IEC 14443 standard. The 2kbit memory on the
M24SR02-Y can be read/written from the radio interface,
but also from the I2C interface.
B. Prototype At a first step the prototype is implemented
on a pin board.
Figure 2.1 Prototype systems on a pin board. The yellow
wire on the far-right side is the NFC antenna. The
two seven segment displays show the configured sensor
id.
Figure 2.1 shows this pin board. The ATmega 328P is
placed at the top of it. The ATmega runs the extended
firmware of an smarthomatic environment sensor. The larger
structure on the right is the M24SR02-Yin an SMD package
adapter. The NFC antenna is the yellow cable on the right
side of the M24SR02-Y. The two seven segment displays
show the currently configured network id of the
environment sensor. It changes every time a new id is
configured through the NFC tag.
III. APPLICATION
The mobile phone application for configuring the
smarthomatic sensors through NFC is written for the
Android Operating System (OS). Android and Apples IOS,
are the most widely spread smart phone OSs today. Java is
the programming language for most Android applications
and a lot of support material is available on the Internet.

4. Because of the low barrier for application development,
Android is chosen as the OS for the prototype application.
The application itself is clearly structured. The main
activity is displayed at the start of the application. It
presents no real information, but through selecting the
typical Android application menu the user can choose
between showing all sensor/actuator devices stored in the
database and adding a device. Figure 5 shows the activity
to add a device.
Figure3.1 shows the moment configuring the wireless
network id, the type of the device, its location, and a
128/256-bit key can be stored into the application
database. After storing the data, it can be transferred to the
sensor/actuator by just holding the phone directly above it.
The information about the configured devices can be
exported into a CSV file. An example file is displayed in
Table II. All the configured information can be exported
and for example important in a central database.
Table 1 show the different configuration data sizes for three
smarthomatic devices. Configuration data for these devices
consist among others of:
sensor data and transmitting it.

5. 1
5
IVFUTURE SCOPE
 NFC SD and SIM Cards For
those who want to use near field communication
technology but don’t currently have an NFC
compatible smartphone, there are other ways to
enable NFC on your phone without trading it in for
an expensive new model. Both SIM and SD cards
can be equipped with NFC chips, and some
companies currently offer or are preparing to offer
these options so more customers can start using
NFC technology.
 SD Cards An SD
card serves as a memory card for your smartphone.
Purchasing an SD card with NFC technology
stored on it lets you pop it into your phone’s SD
card slot and start waving your smartphone at
registers or over smart posters. The drawback of
this technology is the range of phones it can work
with. Those with a metallic SD card slot won’t
work; however, those with a non-metallic slot
should work just fine with the NFC SD card.
 SIM Cards SIM
cards with NFC chips embedded on them are soon
to be a worldwide standard, making them more
accessible and compatible than SD card versions of
NFC technology. The SIM card does raise security
concerns, however. It could be stolen or possibly
hacked to collect and use sensitive financial
information. As the standards for this technology
are developed, companies aim to create increased
security that prevents these potential problems
fromoccurring.
 Set-up and Usage Once
you’ve purchased an SD or SIM card for your
smartphone, turn off your phone and insert the
card. Turn the phone back on and search the
smartphone’s marketplace for apps compatible with
NFC technology. To work you’ll need to wave the
area with the SD or SIM card over the card reader,
which can prove a little trickier to hit than with
smartphones that come preinstalled with NFC
chips. Removing the card will disable your NFC
access.
V CONCLUSION
A smart supermarket shopping system based on NFC has
advantages including high reliability, real-time interactions,
convenience of installation and maintenance as well as high
efficiency. However, there is still a long way to go before it
is widely put into use. The problems now focus on the super
intendance of e-tags and lack of research in NFC terminals.
With the development of mobile communication
technologies, the way of life will become more intelligent,
the system of mobile payment will be ameliorated too. The
future of NFC payment is still bright and the applications
supporting NFC will continue to turn up with the maturation
of the market.
In the near future, part of people's lives is certain to be
occupied with wide spread emergence of the NFC
technology, particularly with respect to mobile payment. It is
an industry worth continued attention
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