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23 lines
2.8 KiB
23 lines
2.8 KiB
\section{Environment}\label{env}
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The research presented in this paper was mainly driven by \textit{Magrathea Laboratories e.V.} \cite{maglab}, the local hackerspace in Fulda, Germany, in cooperation with researchers at the department for computer science at Fulda University of Applied Sciences.
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Requirements were clearly defined by Magrathea Laboratories' demands to provide local and remote control over various sensors and actors in the foundations rooms to visitors and members.
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Such components include door sensors, power sockets, temperature sensors, projectors and screens who are all managed by a home-automation controller, which is driven by the software \textit{home-assistant} \cite{HASS}.
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It provides direct control over all existing components using a web-based user interface and allows to define rules and automations on how these components interact.
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For the component's hardware, boards based on the \textit{ESP8266} micro-controller are used.
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These boards feature a small and robust design, achieve very low power consumption and integrate WiFi without requiring any extra components.
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It integrates a Tensilica L106 32-bit micro controller unit (MCU) with a maximum CPU performance of 160 MHz, 64 kB instruction memory and another 96 kB of main memory.
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According to the manufacturer, the ESP8266 is among the most integrated WiFi-capable chips in the industry.
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While at the beginning of this research, mostly \textit{ESP-01s} \cite{ESP-01s} boards in combination with self-developed power supplies and use-case specific hardware components were deployed, we quickly integrated \textit{Sonoff} \cite{sonoff} wireless smart switches product series offered by \textit{ITEAD}.
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The firmware for all of the \textit{ESP8266}-based devices in the hackerspace has been implemented using on our common software platform, referred to as \textit{ESPer}.
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\textit{Sming}, which in turn is based on the open-source SDK for \textit{ESP8266}, provides the base library for this framework.
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It integrates a lot of other software components and provides all kinds of functionality shared by all devices, allowing to reuse parts of the source code in multiple devices.
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For communication with the controller, the \textit{MQTT} \cite{MQTT} protocol is used.
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It provides a lightweight messaging mechanism implementing the publish-subscribe pattern that allows devices to listen for commands and publish their current state to the controller and other interested parties.
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The controller software has out-of-the-box support for this protocol, which allows easy integration of all different device types using the same patterns.
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The components all share the same configuration in regard to the network access and the controller to communicate with.
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The configuration is provided during build time, which eschews the need for a configuration interface and reduces the management overhead, thus minimizing security leaks.
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