CS/ECE 439: Wireless Networks Fall 2013

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Syllabus

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.

Staff

 

Instructor Prof. Robin Kravets, rhk@illinois.edu SC 3114
Office Hours: M: 10:00a - 12:00a
TA Güliz Seray Tuncay - gulizseray@gmail.com
TA Office Hours TBA
 
TA office hours will be held in room 3109SC (Siebel Center - 3rd floor)

Website

http://courses.engr.illinois.edu/cs439/

Piazza

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).
    sign-up link: http://piazza.com/illinois/fall2013/cs439
    class discussion page: https://piazza.com/illinois/fall2013/cs439/home

Grades

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:

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:

7 days before your presentation:

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:

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.

Project Checkpoint 1 – Extended Project Proposal

Checkpoint 2 – Status Report

Final Project

 Project Presentation