Two internships on IoT for Smart Home

University Bourgogne Franche-Comté - FEMTO-ST

The Department of Computer Sciences at University Bourgogne Franche-Comté, Montbéliard, is looking
for interns in the area of Internet of Things for Smart Home. The candidates are expected to participate in
deployment and implementation of an IoT network for green smart home. The appointment will be for a period
of 6 months, starting on february 2023.

Context
Due to the growth of Internet-of-Things (IoT) and smart devices, smart houses have received considerable
attention recently [1]. However, the adoption of such technologies is slow since many of them are not cost-
effective and instead focus on specific functions, such as energy efficiency [2]. Recent IoT devices and sensors
have been created to improve the quality of daily life by generating continuous data streams that the user
can utilize to monitor and draw inferences. While smart home gadgets connect to the home Wi-Fi network,
compatibility difficulties between devices from different manufacturers still exist. When smart gadgets can
connect with and control each other, they become more smarter. The information obtained by one device can
be shared with others to automate their functions more thoroughly. Some home automation systems have been
designed with specific goals, such as enhancing energy efficiency, safety, and intruder defense. There is a need
for load balancing to allow various devices to operate simultaneously and be controlled by different users in the
home via an intuitive interface that can accommodate the preferences of multiple home inhabitants [3]. While
vision-based technologies employing artificial intelligence are advanced, they are seen as intrusive, and their
automation models cannot be generalized or integrated with other technologies [4]. Incorporating environmental
factors such as light, heat, and other variable conditions that affect the model into a smart home automation
system could be fairly difficult.

Motivations & Objectives

This work will be achieved in the context of the “Badvel living Lab” project that aims at developing a full IoT,
Big Data, and Machine Learning-Based framework for smart homes. The candidate will be working on technical
and research tasks. The technical part consists of modeling, deploying and building connected objects for smart
homes. Using existing sensors and equipment, the candidate will start the modeling and implementation of a
prototype in a lab setting, then moving to a real house. In addition, the candidate will work on attaining home
automation using modern tools and developing a data collection pipeline that makes raw data locally avail-
able. The purpose is to present a functional model/framework that takes into account the trade-off between
usability/utility, non-intrusiveness, and privacy. It is widely recognized that adopting existing and commercial
solutions would result in a more user-friendly experience for homeowners. However, when it comes to privacy
and complete access to the collected data, it remains difficult to create customized functionalities. Among the
goals of this work are energy optimization in smart homes, security and safety, and smart assistance.

This work seeks to address the interoperability of heterogeneous devices in the infrastructure of smart homes.
There are various levels of interoperability, including connectivity interoperability, device interoperability, net-
work interoperability, semantic interoperability, and syntactic interoperability [5]. This work intends to examine
the use of natural language as a support for semantic interoperability and the interconnection of heterogeneous
devices and services using natural language [6,7]. Another topic of interest is the application of computer vision
techniques for edge computing in smart homes.

1
 Among the activities that will be performed are the following:
• Comprehensive study on smart home frameworks/architectures.
• Programming embedded devices and microcontrollers.

• Design and implementation of a smart home (automation) system.

• Collect, analyze and visualize data.
• Research topics addressed by this project:
– Research study on natural language for semantic interoperability in smart homes.
– Research study on computer vision for edge computing in the context of smart homes.
Keywords—Smart Home, IoT, Interoperability, Edge computing, Artificial intelligence, Home automation

Welcome Team
FEMTO-ST Institute, University of Franche-Comté.

Application instructions
Candidates should provide:
• A curriculum vitae,
• A motivation letter.
Applications should be sent to the supervisors: Abdallah Makhoul (abdallah.makhoul@univ-fcomte.fr) and
Joseph Azar (joseph.azar@univ-fcomte.fr), researchers at FEMTO-ST Institute.

References
[1] Mussab Alaa, Aws Alaa Zaidan, Bilal Bahaa Zaidan, Mohammed Talal, and Miss Laiha Mat Kiah. A review
of smart home applications based on internet of things. Journal of Network and Computer Applications,
97:48–65, 2017.
[2] Suriya Priya R Asaithambi, Sitalakshmi Venkatraman, and Ramanathan Venkatraman. Big data and per-
sonalisation for non-intrusive smart home automation. Big Data and Cognitive Computing, 5(1):6, 2021.
[3] Mengda Jia, Ravi S Srinivasan, and Adeeba A Raheem. From occupancy to occupant behavior: An analytical
survey of data acquisition technologies, modeling methodologies and simulation coupling mechanisms for
building energy efficiency. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 68:525–540, 2017.
[4] Kibum Kim, Ahmad Jalal, and Maria Mahmood. Vision-based human activity recognition system using
depth silhouettes: A smart home system for monitoring the residents. Journal of Electrical Engineering &
Technology, 14(6):2567–2573, 2019.

[5] Summia Taj, Uniza Asad, Moeen Azhar, and Sumaira Kausar. Interoperability in iot based smart home: A
review. Journal homepage: http://iieta. org/Journals/RCES, 5(3):50–55, 2018.
[6] Grenot Thierry, Callejas Zoraida, Griol David, McTear Michael, and Bandyopadhyay Debopam. Natural
language for an interoperable internet of simple things. In 2019 IEEE 5th World Forum on Internet of
Things (WF-IoT), pages 474–479. IEEE, 2019.

[7] Jacob Nilsson, Fredrik Sandin, and Jerker Delsing. Interoperability and machine-to-machine translation
model with mappings to machine learning tasks. In 2019 IEEE 17th International Conference on Industrial
Informatics (INDIN), volume 1, pages 284–289. IEEE, 2019.