An Intelligent Home Automation Control System Based on A Novel Heat Pump and Wireless Sensor Networks J. Brito, T. Gomes, J. Miranda, L. Monteiro * , J. Cabral, J. Mendes and J. L. Monteiro Centro Algoritmi University of Minho, Portugal {jbrito, mr.gomes, jmiranda, jcabral, jose.mendes, joao.monteiro}@dei.uminho.pt, * leonel.monteiro@pintobrasil.pt Abstract—One of technology’s main goals is to providing comfort to humans. However, in order to be an aid, it has to be easy to install, use and maintain. The ever growing complexity of technological systems can only be achieved by converging different technologies. This is usually expressed as Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), previews the symbiosis of several technologies in order to make them more accessible. This paper attempts to demonstrate the integration between two technologies such as: Heat-pump System and Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) to provide a new control mechanism for new building generations so-called smart houses. The proposed control architecture ben- efits from our developed WSN hardware platform. It enables the user to control and monitor the ventilation system using our developed mobile application and/or a personal computer. Also, the performance of the proposed hardware platform is measured in three different environments in order to observer the coverage area of the WSN. Index Terms—Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN), Home Au- tomation, Integrated Home Control (IHC), Energy Efficiency, Indoor Air Quality (IAQ), Cyber-Physical Systems I. I NTRODUCTION In the last few years, interest in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) has increased considerably in a large number of applications such as: habitat monitoring, health monitoring, precision agriculture, forest fire detection, water quality mon- itoring, infrastructural health monitoring (bridges, slopes, and roads) and home automation [1,2,3,4,5,6], among other areas. WSNs typically comprises many distributed autonomous sen- sor nodes, that have sensing unit boards, on-board processing and wireless communication capabilities [7]. These sensors have been effective employed to monitor various physical quantities, like temperature, pressure, flow rate, humidity, acoustics, vibrations, light and even pollution levels [8]. Due to the rapid growth of sensing and positioning technologies [9], the WSN has proven its potential to be a low power [10] viable solution for various low level monitoring and control applications. Recently, Intelligent Buildings (IBs) have become one of the most popular research areas since the optimized usage of resources and energy conservation in the buildings is vital. The IB is a technology that employs integrated automated control systems in the buildings in order to control the energy usage and improve energy conservation. In the last few years, home automation has become popular due to the convenience, comfort and security that it provides to people. Some of the functionalities are light control, Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning systems (HVAC), water heating systems, appli- ances and other equipment that can be automated. People’s awareness about energy consumption and environmental issues is increasing. This leads to the creation and optimization of renewable energy systems. An automated building is a building in which the mechan- ical and electrical devices are monitored and controlled by intelligent, computerized electronic control systems. In such buildings, energy consumption of devices is optimized by automation demand-oriented control systems. To manage all the different devices, a comprehensive sensor and actuator network infrastructure is needed, that usually entails extensive and expensive wiring. One possible solution is the use of WSNs not only as sensory system but also as an intelligent controller. In this paper, a novel heat-pump machine (air and water), capable of controlling and optimizing the air flow and the indoor air quality (IAQ) minimizing power consumption, is presented. It uses a new prototype heating system for water and air that combines on a single equipment air and water pumps, exploring simultaneously the benefits of the WSNs. The over- all control system is based on a WSN where all the ventilation units, located inside rooms, are equipped and controlled by sensor nodes, in order to provide an energy efficient HVAC system. The system can also be remotely controlled using a mobile application installed on a smartphone, or through a web browser. The remaining of the paper is structured as follows: on section II the overall system’s architecture is discussed; section III presents the developed hardware; section IV the nodes software and the smartphone application; and section VI presents the conclusions of this work. II. SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE The Integrated Home Control (IHC) architecture and the overall system architecture are shown in Figure 1 and 2