Hierarchy model to develop and simulate Digital Habitat Ecosystem Architecture

Abstract

This paper introduces a Hierarchy model to develop and simulate Digital Habitat ecosystem Architecture (DHEA). A Digital Ecosystem (DE) is an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) system, which includes an open and a loosely coupled network of self-organizing ICT nodes and links. Advances in DE technology, an emerging research area, promise new approaches for controlling, monitoring, and managing the use and reuse of resources in built environments. However, the use of DE technology is currently limited to application in business enterprise networks as Open Source Environment (OSE). There are many network communication challenges because of this OSE i.e. advanced smart home devices are open source devices which can communicate via Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN), and are facing some networking traffic delays. Many research and development challenges exist, and must be addressed before this technology can be scaled to, and applied in built environments. The objective of this paper is to describe the hierarchy model of the smart home environment using a DE concept, and explain how the smart home devices communicate according to their node set up.