A Multi-Tiered Alert Mechanism for Intrusion and
Disaster Prevention in a Smart Home Scenario
Adwitiya Mukhopadhya Y
Department of Computer Science
Amrita School of Arts and Sciences, Mysuru
Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, India
m_adwitiya@asas.mysore.amrita.edu
Akshay Kumar P
Department of Computer Science
Amrita School of Arts and Sciences, Mysuru
Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, India
akshay.aash123@gmail.com
Abstract— Today we are living in a wor ld where smart
homes are highly prevalent. Such homes involve many smart
devices to form an Internet of Things (IoT) structure and huge
amounts of data are generated. Efficient transmission of these
data is vital since they may contain security related information
also. The resident of the smart homes should be notified about
any intrusions or emergencies such fire accidents when they are
away from the home. In this paper, we propose a mechanism
based on Wi-Fi 802.11b where various types of data traffic are
considered which detects the intrusions and the emergencies in a
smart home based scenario. Here alerts are sent to the resident
through a cloud server. A multi-tiered detection and data
transmission system is designed to improve the efficiency of the
alert mechanism.
Keywords—IoT, Wi-Fi, 802.11b, Intrusion prevention, Smart
Home, Alerts
I. INTRODUCTION
With the ever-increasing application of the Internet of
Things (IoT) in many areas, it has also entered the smart home
design. Smart homes integrate technology and services
through the home network to improve the quality of life. It
uses various technologies to equip home components for
smarter monitoring, remote controlling and enables influential
harmonic interactions between them, thereby automating daily
housework and activities without user intervention. The
integrated home service enables the devices to communicate
with each other through the home controller so that a single
button can control various home systems according to pre-
programmed scenes or modes of operation. Smart homes will
improve home comfort, convenience, safety and energy
management. With the development of the economy and the
emergence of the information society, people's needs and
living conditions continue to improve[1].
The following are the characteristics of a Smart home
system:
1) Compatible with various communication technologies:
Various communication interfaces can be fixed on the
978-1-5386-8158-9/19/$31.00©2019IEEE
Vinayaka R
Department of Computer Science
Amrita School of Arts and Sciences, Mysuru
Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, India
vinayakaraj007@gmail.com
smart home network, It can integrate various
heterogeneous communication technologies
2) Ubiquitous services: By using ubiquitous access networks,
real-time information of the smart home can be easily
accessed wherever users are.
3) Comprehensive views: Using different kinds of logical and
physical sensors, time monitoring of home devices can be
done
4) Convenient control. Controlling the smart home can be
done by various communication devices such as mobile
terminals and PCs, and the control results will be displayed
in real-time through various visualization interfaces.[2]
Smart homes are good for the elderly, providing care that
helps older people stay comfortably and safely at home instead
of moving to old age homes or requiring 24/7 home care.
Although, smart home automation systems have been
trying hard to become conventional, partly because of their
technical nature. One of the drawbacks is that smart homes
feel complicated; some people have difficulties with the new
technology. Smart home creators and associations are working
to reduce complexity and improve the user experience, making
them happy and useful for all types and levels of technology
users.
The concept of home automation and its safety has existed
since the late 1970s. But in the process of technological
advancement, home automation and its security systems have
changed in different home automation systems over time, they
have been trying to provide home residents with an efficient,
convenient and safe way to visit their homes[3]
Security has become a very important aspect everywhere.
Now, with the increasing possibility of intrusion, home
security becomes more and more necessary. Anti-theft, air
leakage and fire safety are some of the important requirements
of people's home security systems.
 Home security will be the main concern for anyone who
owns or rents a home. In addition, a safe and secure living
space is a necessity for everyone because most family
members are working. On most days, the house is left
unattended, because continuous monitoring of housing is
difficult, so crimes of home invasion are at their peak.
II. SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE
A. Smart Home Design
A standard home design is illustrated in Figure 1 for the
explanation of a Smart Home. A standard 60 by 40 feet layout
is considered with a living room, kitchen, dining hall, 2 bed
rooms and a washroom.
Fig.1. Construction of a Smart Home
B. CCTV Camera
Closed-circuit television (CCTV) or video surveillance,
uses cameras to transmit signals to specific locations on a
limited monitor. It varies from broadcasting television in that
the signal is not transmitted publicly, although it may use
point-to-point (P2P), point-to-multipoint (P2MP) or wireless
links or wired. The given Figure 2 demonstrates the
connecting of CCTV Cameras to a Smart TV.
With smart security cameras, residents can watch homes
while on the move or on vacation. Intelligent motion sensors
can also detect differences between residents, thieves, and pets
and can notify administrations or users if unusual behavior is
detected.
The image sensor size of CCTV cameras will be of 1/3", or
1/2.5" and the focal length of lens used are 2.8mm, 3.6mm,
4mm, 6mm, 8mm, 12mm.With 1/3" of image sensor, 2.8mm
focal length will be about 90° of coverage is about 8–15
meters distance range;
C. Internet TV or IPTV
TV with built-in Internet and interactive "Web 2.0"
capabilities. Smart TVs should not be confused with Internet
TV, IPTV or Internet TV. This refers to the reception of
television content over the Internet rather than the traditional
systems such as ground, cable and satellite. IPTV is one of the
Internet TV technology standards used by TV broadcasters.
D. Smoke Detectors and an Alarm System
Smoke detectors will be of high voltage and connected to
discrete circuit boards. Because they are on a single cable
Loops, they are inter-connected, so if a probe is triggered, they
are all stroke. There are battery-powered smoke detectors that
can be heard interconnected. The device is designed for
listening to conventional ionization or photoelectric smoke
detector sounds. When it listens to the smoke alarm, it will
open the scheduled fire zone of the alarm system. The main
intent of the unit is to only remotely monitor the present
smoke detecting system.
 Smoke detectors are usually installed in plastic
housings. Shaped like a disc about 150 mm (6 inches)
in diameter and is 25 mm (1 inch) thick but varies in
shape and size.
 Optical smoke detectors contain a light source
basically infrared, visible, ultraviolet, incandescent
light bulbs or light emitting diodes, one lens and one
Photo-electric receiver (usually a photodiode).
 Photoelectric Smoke Detector responds more quickly
to fire early, smoldering stage (before the outbreak).
 A large number of combustion particles - between 0.3
and 10.0 μm. Ionized smoke detectors respond faster
(usually 30-60 Second) in the combustion phase of
the flame.
E. Access Points
In WLANs or Wireless Local Area Networks, access
points are the stations or also knows as transceivers that send
and receive data. An access point connects users to other users
in the network and can also act as an interconnection point
between a WLAN and a fixed wired network. Each access
point can provide services to multiple users within a defined
network area.
F. Cloud Storage
Cloud Storage enables the user to access the data that is
generated from the devices that are in the smart home
network.
III. RELATED WORKS
In the future, it is predicted that about 90 million people
will reside in smart homes, using smart home technologies to
improve home security and efficient energy management.[4] The above Figure 2: depicts the alert texts being sent to the
With the rapid growth of IoT applications, it is tough to handle User and the Emergency Departments. In Tier-1, the Detection
all applications in the IoT environment If these increased of the Intrusion and the Disaster is done with the Wi-Fi
applications cannot be controlled effectively and conveniently, technology and in Tier-2 the Alert messages is sent using a
the entire system will not be convenient and safer. DSL connection to the user through the cloud server.
Some of the main problems that arise in the smart home
environment are:
3.1 Standards: It is very important for the IoT
environment since it is growing worldwide. The
challenges such as which standards to be used, which
will give a safe medium, and which will make the
system more efficient and reliable should be
addressed.
3.2 Privacy: The user related data must be kept private.
Privacy must be provided with connections.
3.3 Authentication: The authentication should be given by
the server for only the authenticated users and it
should be a must for all the smart homes.
3.4 Data Storage: As data is collected abundantly in the
cloud storage, Meaningful data should be extracted
using Artificial Intelligence (AI) based Algorithms.
3.5 Network Organization: All the devices in the network
should be connected in a proper way that the Home
Network is self-organized.[5]

There is very low security provided from the server side for
the Smart home System and IoT environment. AI based
algorithms can be used to extract meaningful data from the
abundant data in the cloud.
Fig.3. System Architecture of Smart Home Scenario.
IV. METHODOLOGY
A. Data Flows
In the Multi-Tiered Smart Home System, the first tier
includes the detection system that is the CCTV cameras and There are mainly four data flows in the Smart Home
the smoke detectors. These devices detect the anomalies and System.
inform the next tier devices by sending data. The second tier
4.1 CCTV Cameras to the Internet TV (Flow 1).
of devices consist the Internet TV and the smoke alarm
system. These send the alert messages to the user and to the 4.2 Smoke Detecting Sensors to Smoke Alarm (Flow 2).
nearest emergency department such as the Fire department or 4.3 Internet TV, Smoke Alarm, Laptop and Phone to Local
the Police department in-case of a fire disaster or an intrusion Cloud Server (Flow 3).
that is detected respectively in the Smart home.

B. Smart Home Design Approach

Real world parameters for the data flow between the
devices are considered for the experiment. In a Smart Home
Scenario, the intrusions and fire disasters can happen at any
time, so the alert messages are sent to the user regularly. Our
work focuses mainly on the security aspect of home
automation.

V. IMPLEMENTATION AND RESULTS

The Implementation is done in NS-3.26. As mentioned
earlier, the first tier uses Wi-Fi 802.11b wireless technology
and the second tier uses DSL connection.
Fig.2. Alerts that are sent to the user.
 The parameter values for the simulation of the first data alert mechanism works efficiently with zero or lower data
flow is given in the below table. The standard data rate of loss. The intrusions and the disasters are detected by the
CCTV camera is considered and the values are calculated devices and alerts are forwarded to the user.
accordingly.

TABLE IV: AVERAGE VALUES OF PDR, THROUGHPUT AND

TABLE I: PARAMETERS FOR CCTV CAMERAS TO INTERNET TV DELAY
DATA FLOW SIMULATION VALUES
Flow 1 Flow 2 Flow 3
Avg PDR 98.57 99.71 99.53
Parameters Values
Data Rate 900 Kbps Avg Throughput 18.15 18.16 19.06
Number of Bytes 115,200 Bytes/Second Avg Delay 162.43 173.46 214.48
Packet Size 2304 Bytes
Inter Packet Interval 0.02 seconds Individual Graphs for the Parameters: PDR, Throughput
Number of packets 50 Packets/Second and Delay is shown with the Average Values calculated from
the data flows
The second data flow simulation is done with values given
below, which are used by the smoke detectors. The standard
data rate for the smoke detectors are used and simulated.

TABLE II: PARAMETERS FOR SMOKE DETECTING SENSORS TO

SMOKE ALARM DATA FLOW SIMULATION VALUES
Parameters Values
Data Rate 2 Kbps
Number of Bytes 256 Bytes/Second
Packet Size 2.5 Bytes
Inter Packet Interval 0.01 seconds
Number of packets 100 ckets/Second

The third and final data flow is where the alerts are sent
from the Internet TV and the Smoke Alarm to cloud. The
alerts are sent at regular intervals of 50 seconds. So that the Graph 1: Showing the Average PDR values for each Data Flow
time gap for the disaster or the intrusion to occur is very
minimal. From Graph 1, it can be conclude that PDR is consistent in all
the data flows and Packets are delivered with an efficiency of
Table III: Parameters for the simulation of the third data flow greater than 98%.
Parameters Values
Data Rate 2 Kbps
Number of Bytes 256 Bytes/Second
Packet Size 2.5 Bytes
Inter Packet Interval 50 seconds
Number of packets 1 Packet/50 Seconds

The Test Cases Include 9 Simulation Times, ranging from 50s-

3500s.These simulations are carried out under the Parameters
mentioned in the table 1, table 2 and table 3 in the previous
section.
The average values of Packet Delivery Ratio (PDR),
Throughput and Delay are calculated for each simulation Time
and Tabulated. The Simulation Time Starts from 50s and goes
up-to 3500s. As the simulation time increases, the number of
packets sent are also increased. The Inter Packet Interval is Graph 2: Showing the Average Throughput values for each Data
varied according to the Flow of Data which is mentioned in Flow
the table 1, table 2 and table 3. The Experimental results show
that the data loss found is very minimal or negligible. Thus the
 From Graph 2, it can be can conclude that the sum of the
data rates that are delivered to all terminals in the Smart Home
Network is Consistent.
Graph 3: Showing the Average Delay values for each Data Flow
From Graph 3, it can be conclude that the Delay measured is
minimal and won’t affect the data transfer in a crucial way.
VI. CONCLUSION
A Smart Home with Automated alert sending mechanism
that detects intrusions and disasters is designed and simulated
in a Network Simulator and the results are shown. Good
results are obtained from the experiment and it shows the data
is sent effectively in the network and user is alerted. Thus, the
security of the Smart Home is improved and owner or resident
of the home can be safe from these intrusions and disasters.
The future scope of the research can be done integrating
more sensors and devices which can detect other disasters or
intrusions or warnings such as Proximity sensors for unusual
movement, an Authentication mechanism for the entrance
door, gas leakage detection etc. and these can alert the user
regarding them.
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