Course Details

1. Explain the main principles underlying the field of mobile and wireless computer networks, and recognize the wider context of wireless/mobile networks.
2. Describe the concepts and issues needed to develop, maintain and manage a wireless/mobile computer network.
3. Perform literature searches, and computer simulation, that may require to identify and obtain required data, and to critically evaluate data and draw conclusions.
4. Use appropriate methods to pursue research or other detailed investigation of technical issues, and present, explain and report recent advances and open research issues and challenges in advanced wireless/mobile computer networks.
5. Perform comparisons and evaluate performance of various issues in wireless/mobile networks, and conclude with and/or propose possible solutions/enhancements.

Introduction to Wireless/Mobile Computer Networks: Applications of wireless/mobile. Signal propagation (path loss, multi-path propagation, shadow fading). Signal important quantities (SNR, SIR, C/I, Eb, No).

Telecommunications Systems: Principles of cellular networks. Cellular network organization. Operation of cellular systems. Mobile radio propagation effects.  Handover. Power control. Traffic Engineering. System architectures of 2G, 2.5G, 3G, 4G and beyond.

Wireless LAN: Infrastructure and ad-hoc networks. IEEE 802.11: System architecture, Protocol architecture, Standards (802.11b/g/n and newer developments).

IEEE 802.15 (WPAN – Wireless Personal Area Networks): IEEE 802.15.1 (Bluetooth - User scenarios, Architecture). IEEE 802.15.4 (Low-rate WPAN – ZigBee protocol).

Wireless Sensor networks: Wireless sensor network applications and scenarios. Wireless sensor network design requirements: System requirements, device requirements. Routing techniques in wireless sensor networks.

Mobile Network Layer - Mobile IP: IP packet delivery. Agent discovery. Registration. Tunnelling and encapsulation. Optimizations. Reverse tunnelling. IPv6. IP micro-mobility support - Cellular IP, Hierarchical mobile IPv6.

Mobile ad-hoc networks: Routing, Destination sequence distance vector. Dynamic source routing. Least interference routing. Overview ad-hoc routing protocols.

Mobile Transport Layer: Classical TCP improvements. TCP over 2.5/3G wireless networks. Performance enhancing proxies.

Broadband Wireless Access Standards: IEEE 802.16 – WiMAX: System architecture. Protocol architecture. Services.

• Jochen Schiller, Mobile Communications, Addison Wesley, 2nd Ed., 2004

• William Stallings, Wireless Communications and Networks, Prentice Hall, 2nd Ed., 2005,

Students are taught the course through lectures by means of computer presentations. Lectures are integrated by invited talks from experts from industry. Lecture notes and presentations are available through the web for students to use in combination with the textbooks.

Guided individual and/or group project and assignments are given to develop practical skills while integrating the course theory. Further research literature search is encouraged by assigning students to identify a specific problem related to some possible open research issues, gather relevant scientific information about how others have addressed the problem and report this information in written and/or orally.