Wireless and Mobile Computing

Overview of current hardware, software, and communication standards for mobile computing, distinction between mobile and distributed computing; Development of mobile applications, software tools, languages, and APIs; Mobile networking and standards in depth, service location, data dissemination, routing; Mobile agents, caching, and data replication and synchronization

Introduction to wireless networking. Advantages and disadvantages of wireless networking, Characteristics of radio propagation. Fading, Multipath propagation.

Introduction to digital transmission. Definition of bit-rate and signalling rate. Introduction to synchronous transmission. The need for pulse shaping, synchronisation and line-coding. Calculation of bit-error probabilities when the channel is affected by the addition of Gaussian noise.

Narrowband digital modulation. The need for modulation. Binary and multi-level (M-ary) amplitude-shift keying (ASK), frequency-shift keying (FSK) and phase-shift keying (PSK). Wideband modulation techniques to cope with inter-symbol interference direct sequence spread spectrum Adaptive Equalization Orthogonal frequency division multiplex

Medium Access Control (MAC). MAC protocols for digital cellular systems such as GSM. MAC protocols for wireless LANs such as IEEE802.11 and HIPERLAN I and II. The near far effect. Hidden and exposed terminals. Collision Avoidance (RTS-CTS) protocols.

Protocols supporting mobility. Mobile network layer protocols such as mobile-IP, Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP). Mobile transport layer protocols such as mobile-TCP, indirect-TCP. Wireless Application Protocol (WAP).