Distributed Computing Group


Mobile Computing

Today we witness that three recent tech success stories (cellular phones, the Internet, and ultra light computing devices such as personal digital assistants) are being unified into what is dubbed "mobile computing".

The goal of this course is to discuss the principles of mobile computing and wireless communication. We start with radio transmission and work our way up the networking stack by discussing the usual suspects: media access and logical link control, network and transport layer with mobile IP and TCP alternatives. We discuss and analyze algorithmic concepts along with real-world standards such as GSM, wireless LAN, Bluetooth, or satellites. We also study the foundations of multi-hop ad-hoc networks. After knowing the basics we home in on applications and ask how mobile computing will change the programmer's world: How do we program in disconnected operation (for example calendar synchronization); how do we deal with hardware limitations (WAP)?

We are excited about our practical exercises! They are an integral part of the course and tied in with the lecture. In the exercises we build an ad-hoc network on wireless LAN base. We start by programming the "hello world!" equivalent for ad-hoc networks, and step by step build more advanced mobile computing applications, such as instant messaging, chat, multi-hop discovery, and an awesome distributed game.

Course pre-requisites: Basic networking knowledge; it would be great if each student had a programmable "mobile" (old school schlepptop is OK) device available, and if possible a wireless LAN card (IEEE 802.11b by Cisco/Aironet or Apple/AirPort).

Course language: English written, German spoken.

Lecture by Roger Wattenhofer, Monday 10.15 @ IFW A32.

Exercises by Keno Albrecht, Fabian Kuhn & Aaron Zollinger, Thursday 16.15 @ IFW A36.

Questionnaire and Summary of Results (in German)

Useful references

Lecture material


Titel PDF 1:1 PDF 4:1 Notes PDF

Chapter 1
Introduction
2002/04/08
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Chapter 2
Physical and Link Layer
2002/04/15
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Chapter 3
Media Access Layer
2002/04/22
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Chapter 4
Wireless LAN
2002/04/29
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Chapter 5
Ad Hoc Networks
2002/05/06
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Chapter 6
Geometric Routing
2002/05/13
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Chapter 7
Clustering
2002/05/27
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Chapter 8
Mobile IP and TCP
2002/06/03
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Chapter 9
GSM
2002/06/10
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Chapter 10
File Systems and Mobile Objects
2002/06/24
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Chapter 11
Mobile Web
2002/07/01
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Exercises material

Please note that exercise 6 is canceled.


Titel PDF Files (temporarily not available)

Exercise 1
Assigned: 2002/04/11
Due: 2002/04/18
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Exercise 2
Assigned: 2002/04/18
Due: 2002/04/25
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Exercise 3
Assigned: 2002/04/25
Due: 2002/05/02
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Exercise 4
Assigned: 2002/05/02
Due: 2002/05/23
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Exercise 5
Assigned: 2002/05/23
Due: 2002/06/13
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Exercise 6
Assigned: 2002/06/13
Due: 2002/06/27
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References

Chapter 1: Introduction

Chapter 2: Physical and Link Layer

Chapter 3: Media Access Control

Chapter 4: Wireless LAN

Chapter 5: Ad Hoc Networks

Chapter 6: Geometric Routing

Chapter 7: Clustering

Chapter 8: Mobile IP and TCP

Chapter 9: GSM

Chapter 10: File Systems and Mobile Objects

Chapter 11: Mobile Web