Creation of a Home Automation Platform

[Bram Biesbrouck <b@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello,

I'm a Belgian student, who is fascinated by home automation. As my final
year thesis/assignment (Computer Science at the University of Ghent), I
wrote an application platform to integrate several communication
standards and protocols (currently in Java, but I'll investigate a
possible port to C/C++ this summer). Currently, it works pretty well
with Ethernet, WiFi, Bluetooth and X10 (research for ZigBee, EIB and
CBus is on it's way). Future research will mainly be concentrated around
wireless protocols, though.

The transitions between the protocols are transparent for the platform
and I made GUIs, a control-website, a mobile phone MIDlet, a 3D-
interface and a Bluetooth-hardware module (which controls a wall outlet
with Bluetooth).
As a supporter of free and open source software, my ultimate goal is to
create a generic, modular and expandable open source platform for Home
Automation, that can cooperate with every possible HA-technology in the
world, so that the user doesn't have to choose between different
technologies. Instead, every single technology or protocol can be
embedded into the platform by means of protocol-dependent plugins with a
common interface to the platform (much like Linux-modules, maybe even
real Linux-modules).
I'm aware of several other similar technologies (Jini, UPnP,
Salutation, ...), but none of them is specifically made or designed for
HA-solutions. I want to create a HA-network-technology that can adapt
itself to the user, instead of the other way around. Instead of renewing
your HA technology when it is outdated, expand it with new technology
and keep your "old" configuration where it is still applicable;
because
of the platform, the new technology will always be compatible with the
"old", and even when it is not, a simple software-update will be
sufficient.

The current core-codebase is about 3000 lines of code, the different
side-codebases each around 800, all written in Java. All software is
written under the GNU General Public License.

Please send me any thought, question, challenge, idea or feature-request
you can think of. I will dedicate a website on it (where you will find
the code) as soon as I find the time to create one. I already wrote a
70-pages paper on the subject (in dutch), email me to get a copy.
(translators are welcome to translate it into English). I'm willing to
fill in or discuss any detail, problem or the like.


Bram Biesbrouck

PS: I probably made a whole lot of spelling- and grammar-errors, my
apologies in advance, English isn't my native language.