Masters Programme in Advanced Computer Science
Mobile Computing Module
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Masters programme information
Week Commencing 11th February 2008
Recent developments in portable devices and high-bandwidth, ubiquitous wireless networks has made mobile computing a reality. Indeed, it is widely predicted that within the next few years access to Internet services will be primarily from wireless devices, with desktop browsing the exception. Such predictions are based on the huge growth in the wireless phone market and the success of wireless data services such as SMS in Europe and NTT Docomo in Japan. In this course we consider current research into the design and implementation of systems and applications software for use in mobile environments.
Course objectives
The course has the following objectives:Syllabus
The course covers a range of topics including:- network and transport protocols for wireless networks, including mobile IP and variants of TCP.
- distributed systems platforms for mobile computing, including proxy based architectures and service discovery and interaction platforms.
- a CS perspective on wireless networks including characteristics of local and wide area technologies such as Bluetooth, 802.11 and GSM.
- file systems support for mobile computing.
- developments in context-aware and ubiquitous computing including recent work at PARC and Microsoft Research. This will provide a simple overview and highlight issues relevant to mobile computing systems - a full treatment of this material is provided in the Ubiquitous Computing module.
- case studies of novel applications.
Assessment
The module is assessed by 50% exam and 50% coursework. The coursework component is split 30% on an individual project and 20% on class participation.
Recommended Reading
The course is structured around selected papers taken from contemporary mobile computing research.
We recommend buying the following text to accompany the course:
- Mobile Communications
by Jochen Schiller
Publisher: Addison Wesley
October 1999
Paperback 400 pages
ISBN: 0201398362
2007/08 course information
Date: Week commencing 11th February 2008Lecturers: Prof Nigel Davies and Prof Hans Gellersen
Available as an 1 week intensive short course. Please see the short courses information page.