CS 294-1

Special Topics: Mobile Computing and Wireless Networking

Announcements

November 22, 2000:

Project papers are due by electronic submission to cs294-1-hwk@iceberg.cs on December 12, 2000 by 5 pm. Papers should be 10 - 12 pages with figures and references.

August 26, 2000:

September 13, 2000:

Information

     Anthony D. Joseph
     Office hours: TBA, by appointment (675 Soda Hall)

TA

     Helen Wang
     Office hours: TBA (473 Soda Hall)

The course plan can be found here.

Mailing List and Roster

Also, please send an email to Helen  (helenjw@cs.berkeley.edu) with the subject "CS 294-1 registration" and the following information:

• last name
• first name
• student ID
• your department
• preferred email address
• URL of your home page
• Where are you in your course of study?
• What is your primary goal in taking this course?
• What is your primary technical interests?
• What EECS courses relevant to Mobile Computing or Wireless Communications have you taken?
• How would you describe your technical background? EE Communications? CS Systems? Something else?
• Describe your most ambitious hardware or software design project
• Could you define the difference between FDMA, TDMA, and CDMA access techniques?
• Do you know what TCP and IP are, and how they are different?
• Also, please indicate explicitly if we can add you to the on-line web page that lists each student enrolled in the class (only your name and URL will be  made publicly available here).

Overview

However, the process is far from over. The two classes of infrastructure have very different design philosophies and requirements; merging them requires a reexamination and reevaluation of the requirements. In addition, while there exists a rich body of knowledge associated with the engineering of wide-area wireless infrastructure, researchers are just beginning to explore the issues associated with utilizing this infrastructure to provide new applications that can exploit mobility and location information.

Today, there exists no well-defined body of knowledge a student must learn to become proficient in wireless communications and mobile information systems. This is an emerging field, and builds on radio engineering, data communications, computer networks, distributed systems, information management, and applications. This course will follow an interdisciplinary "tall thin" approach, making the physical limitations of communications technologies understandable to the computer scientist, while making the system architecture and applications accessible to the electrical engineer. In the long tradition of advanced graduate courses at Berkeley, this one will combine extensive reading and in-class discussion of the research literature with in-depth independent research projects of the students' own choosing.

Curriculum

Recommended Background Reading

D. Milojicic, F. Douglis and R. Wheeler, editors, Mobility: processes, computers, and agents. Addison Wesley, 1999. This book covers mobility from three different perspectives, as suggested by the title. It is a collection of  papers with some extra overview material. Many of the papers are now classics in their areas.

Grading

Students are expected to attend all classes and participate in class discussions. One or two students will act as scribes and take notes of the discussion. You get out what the put into the course, and the best  way to maximize your intellectual gain is to read the papers thoroughly before class and come prepared to engage in lively discussions. Don't worry if you don't understand everything because nobody can be right all of the time. A mark of  maturity is the ability to admit openly when you don't know something and ask for clarification. If you feel confused, others probably do too.

To this end, class participation and preparation will be a part of your overall course grade. For each class, you will be responsible for turning in a brief critique of the papers for that class. The critiques should list 2 to 3 important points for the paper, as well as 1 to 3 criticisms of the paper.

If we feel that class discussion is not going uniformly well because not enough students have come to class prepared, we reserve the right to administer ``pop quizzes''. The scores on these quizzes will be integrated into your class participation grade.

Students will responsible for a class project. The project may be based on the student's own research, however all projects must have applicability to the course. We'll provide a list of potential projects.

Plan and Notes

Guest Lectures

• November 1, 2000: Stephan Baucke on UMTS.
• November 8, 2000: David Wagner and Nikita Borisov on IEEE 802.11 WEP and GSM cellphone security.

Project Presentation Session

• TBD

Course Notes

1. August 30, 2000
2. September 6, 2000 (scribe notes)
3. September 13, 2000
4. September 20, 2000
5. September 27, 2000 (scribe notes)
6. October 4, 2000
7. October 11, 2000 (scribe notes)
8. October 18, 2000
9. October 25, 2000 (scribe notes)
10. November 1, 2000
11. November 8, 2000
12. November 15, 2000
13. November 22, 2000
14. November 29, 2000
15. December 6, 2000

Handouts

1. A glossary of mobile computing and wireless networking terms.

Projects

Deadlines

1. September 27, 2000 - Proposals due and meetings
2. October 25, 2000 - Checkpoint due and meetings

Sign up

Home Pages

Other Mobile Computing Courses on the World Wide Web