Overview of wireless network
architectures including cellular networks, local area networks,
multi-hop wireless networks such as ad hoc networks, mesh
networks, and sensor networks; capacity of wireless networks;
medium access control, routing protocols, and transport
protocols for wireless networks; mechanisms to improve
performance and security in wireless networks; energy-efficient
protocols for sensor networks.
Please post all general questions about lectures, homeworks,
or programming projects on Piazza rather than emailing the
staff, so that others get the benefit of your questions. If you
choose so, you can post anonymously to your classmates, the
instructors will always see the author of a post. If you wish to
communicate anonymously with the staff, please use the feedback
link ab
Exception: do not post your homework or programming project
solution to the newsgroup. If in doubt, contact the TA or
instructor first.) You should also monitor Piazza for answers to
your classmates' questions and other clarifications and
announcements. We will monitor the newsgroup and try to respond
to questions within 24 hours (outside of weekends).
You only get out of this class what you put into it!
Survey and presentation of advanced research topics – 15%
Critical thinking about exciting current research
Comparison of proposed solutions
Applicability and limitations
Project: team-based, hands-on – 50%
More in-depth study of a particular topic
Topic is flexible
Organized in multiple phases
Exam – 30%
Only one exam
During second half of semester
Class Survey
You will be preparing a survey of particular topic in the area
of wireless networking most likely related to your class
project. This survey will be done in teams of one to three
students.
What is a survey?
The goal of a survey is to give a broad, structured overview of
a specific area. Here are two example scenarios in which you may
have to prepare a survey after you graduate:
You are working for a company that is exploring a new
wireless technology or market, so employees and management are
very not very familiar with this new area. You could be asked
to prepare a 30 minute presentation to introduce to area,
highlighting differentapproaches, challenges, opportunities,
and risks.
You decided to go to graduate school and you are writing
your first paper on a researchproject you just finished. You
need to write a short related work section that includes a
survey of existing work in the areas relevant to your
research.
A survey is different from a set of paper summaries. The survey
should focus on presenting the “big picture” using the papers as
examples. Examples may be papers cited in the original papers,
material found on the web, or results from online libraries,
like IEEE Explorer, or the ACM portal. Besides giving you
experience in preparing a survey, this assignment should also
help you sharpen your critical thinking skills. You should not
blindly accept all statements you read simply because they
appear in print in a refereed publication. While the material
will generally be technically correct, parts of the papers may
be biased or may ignore relevant related work (typically by
accident), or the claims may overstate the results that are
presented. These problems most often show up in the evaluation
section of the papers. The evaluation is sometimes flawed (e.g.
uses inaccurate simulators, ignores certain sources of overhead,
or presents graphs in misleading ways) or may be very limited in
scope (e.g. collects results on one testbed that may not be
typical, but then makes very broad claims). Your assessment of
the accuracy of the results should be reflected in the survey,
i.e. the survey must present your perspective on the state of
the art in the area.
You can consult pretty much any material as long as you cite
the source. However, you cannot copy text from other papers or
the web, since that is plagiarism. The only exception is that
you can quote short excerpts or figures from other material,
assuming you make it clear that it is a quote and you cite the
source.
Deliverables
Each team should prepare a presentation (15 min for solo teams,
25 min for two person teams and 35 min for three person teams).
We will allocate enough time for each presentation, leaving time
for questions during and after each presentation. Please e-mail
your team information and preferred topics. The fill in this
doodle poll to select a presentation day
http://doodle.com/73cv8yizswc2sq76.
Milestones
October 7:
Submit team information and proposed topic
7 days before your presentation:
Submit draft slides for feedback
Earlier is always better
Class Project
The goal of the course project is to provide depth in a particular
area of wireless networking in a hands‐on fashion.
Here are some things to consider when defining your project:
The project needs to result in a concrete outcome.
Ultimately, the primary goal is that you learn something.
You should have the necessary background to complete the
project. For example, do not attempt a project at the physical
layer if your only background in this area is just the few
lectures in this course. Similarly, do not attempt a project
that involves kernel or driver hacking if you have limited
rogramming experience.
The project needs to be feasible. For example, the amount of
effort must be reasonable given the time available and you
must have access to the infrastructure needed to execute the
project.
Deliverables
The specific deliverables for the project include a proposal, two
check points and a final presentation. All documents should be in
PDF format and should be e‐mailed to the instructor.
Project Proposal
Project design documents will typically be about two‐three pages
in length, including appropriate figures. Give a brief description
of the problem you intend to work on. However, the more
information you give, the more feedback you will get. The project
design should include the following information. Remember, the
projects scope and size should scale with the number of team
members.
Due September 24th
Names of team members
Project topic and title
Description of activities that will be performed as part of
the project
Expected results
Include at least five related papers with standard
bibliographic references
Equipment and resources needed
Project plan
Rough list of mile stones, responsibilities of team
members, qualifications.
Project Checkpoint 1 – Extended Project Proposal
Due October 15th
Project meetings scheduled the week of October 22nd.
Team information
Approximately five pages, normal font, normal margins.
Progress so far: what was completed
Any results so far
Problems encountered
Changes in the project plan
Build on the description of your project from the initial
proposal.
Focus on challenges and your approach.
Explain why your problem is interesting and mention how
people have been addressing the problem in the past.
If possible, explain the limitations of current approaches.
Describe how you plan to tackle the problem (i.e., through
simulation, emulation and/or implementation) and how you plan
to evaluate your solution (i.e., what metrics will you use to
evaluate performance?).
Checkpoint 2 – Status Report
Due November 12th.
The status report should build on your extended proposal.
Indicate any changes to your approach to your research
project.
Include implementation details and initial results.
Final Project
Due December 3rd.
~ 8 pages per team member
Normal fonts (10 point)
Normal margins (an inch each side)
Normal sized figures.
I will take points off if there is not enough material
(i.e., too short).
And most important of all SPELLCHECK you document. If I
find spelling mistakes that a spell checker would have
found, I will take points off. Same for poorly
organized/written references.
To bring it all together, you want to be able to answer the
following questions (this is by no means a comprehensive
list):
What is the problem?
Why is this problem important?
How are you going to solve/evaluate this problem?
What is different from other people's work?
What are your contributions?
Content (Page counts are just estimates and are probably
low)
Abstract: (1/4 page)
Intro: (1 page)
Quick explanation of problem, your solution (basically
why, what, how).
Why this is an interesting problem and a high level
overview of your contribution.
Motivation and background: (2 - 3 pages)
Highlight the challenges in solving this problem.
Formalize the problem space, analytically or via the
mechanisms
Present your approach in the light of other people's
work
Explain why your solution is better, more robust, etc
Extensive related work showing that you have considered
the current research in the area.
Approach: (1 - 2 pages)
A detailed description of what you did and why you made
particular choices.
This is best if it parallels the discussion and
formalization in the previous section.
Evaluation/Implementation: (3 - 4 pages)
How do you evaluate your solution.
Explain the metrics that you chose for the evaluation
and why you chose them.
Explain your results, both positive and negative.
Conclusions and future directions: (1/2 page)
Explain what your learned.
Point to future research directions to extend this
research/project
Project Presentation
Last week of the semester
Either a class presentation or a poster depending on the
number of projects in the class.