Abstract
In order to comply with future requirements related to the Smart Power Grid, wireless sensors will need to be embedded in household appliances. These appliances, through their embedded sensors, will communicate with the Utility Companies, as well as customers, and provide information related to energy consumption. In order to communicate this information, these sensors use radio signals that require special protocols in order to communicate with a central home gateway as well as a Utility Company’s Smart Meter. In this project the “IPv6 over 802.15.4” protocol, also called 6LowPAN, is used to construct a Wireless Sensor based Home Area Network. This is the same wireless technology that will be embedded in appliances in order to form a wireless sensor network. Because of the wireless nature of this type of network, they are susceptible to security threats; the topic of security is addressed. But how do you built a wireless sensor Home Area Network? What are the ingredients, in terms of technologies, needed to construct such a network? Are there any security issues that need to be addressed before implementing such a network? These questions are answered in this project. Specific topics addressed include the radio signal protocol, the operating system needed to run in the target device as well as the host machine, the programming language needed to create applications that could run on the target device and the actual hardware used to host the operating system and run the applications. In addition, a chapter is dedicated to the discussion of security issues that this type of network is likely experience. The project culminates with the procedure employed to construct a small Home Area Network using the 6LowPAN protocol and related technologies. All of topics related to 6LowPAN have been documented on this report to help readers understand the key ideas needed to construct a home area network using open source tools and the 6LowPAN protocol.