ROLL

Home Automation:
draft-ietf-roll-home-routing-reqs

Jakob Buron
July 2008
ver. 1.0
 Home Automation
• A world of buzzwords...
– Home Control or
– The Connected Home or
– Intelligent Home or
– Smart House or
– ...

• Cost sensitive and resilient to changing

environment

2
Example: Moving nodes
1. Remote control
moved to
kitchen
2. Media center
out of direct
reach
3. Remote control
must find
available
”routers”
4. Deliver routed
command

3
 Devices in the home
• Lamp module
Mains-
powered
• Switch module

• Movement sensor

Battery-
• Smoke alarm powered

• Remote control 4
 draft-ietf-roll-home-routing-reqs
• Fairly stable draft
• This presentation will focus on changes
from rev. 00

5
 Energy Conservation Use Cases
• Stopping power-hungry appliances in
response to dynamic power pricing
Air-conditioning, climate control, washing machines...

• Starting power-hungry appliances when

power supply is abundant/cheap
During night, with wind-generated power etc.

6
 Groupcast
• Transmit simultaneously to several
recipients without prior group setup
• Needed to avoid ”popcorn-effect” when
turning all lights on/off
• Avoid state/subscription in the slave nodes
(severely constrained devices)

7
 Special Routing Cases
• Joining nodes
– Unique addresses distributed from central controller
– Routing join request to controller must be possible
without a unique address
• Battery-powered nodes
– Routing via mains-powered preferred, routing via
battery-powered viable as backup or no alternative
choice
• Constraint-based routing
– Naming consensus on ML
8
 Mobility Support
• Cause of node failing to respond?
– node failed?
– poor radio conditions?
– node moved?
• In Home Automation, a moved node is
most likely (remote control scenario)
– Should be reflected in routing protocol
– E.g. controller or slave initiated re-discovery
– Sleeping nodes not considered unresponsive
9
 Manageability
• Zero-configuration
– A node can obtain an address and join the
network without human intervention
– Human-initiated, everything else automatic
• Misbehaving nodes
– isolate to protect network
– No-global-impact requirement has been
dropped

10
 Traffic Pattern
A rough guess:
• Short frames, payload < 5 bytes
• plus retransmissions
• ACKs of few bytes
• Wall switches, remote controls and
environment sensors specified

11
 Security Considerations
• Cost and energy efficiency vs.
confidentiality, integrity and authentication
• Basic network: Avoid unintentional
inclusion in neighbor network only – no
encryption
• If needed: Encrypted payload for sensitive
applications

12
 Open Issues
• More use cases?
• Explicit summary of routing reqs from use
cases?
• Elaborate on traffic pattern?
• Better routing-related security
considerations?
• Periodic scanning?

13
 Open Issues
• More use cases?
• Explicit summary of routing reqs from use
cases?
• Elaborate on traffic pattern?
• Better routing-related security
considerations?
• Periodic scanning?

Thank you for listening!

Any questions or comments? 14