CS G250: Wireless Networks

Spring 2007

240 WVH                                                                               Work: 617-373-2075
College of Computer Science                                                 Email: rraj AT ccs DOT neu DOT edu
Northeastern University                                                         Fax:    617-373-5121

Class meeting times/location: TF 11:45-13:25 PM, 5 Snell Library

Office Hours: T 4:00-5:00 PM, Th 4:00-5:00 PM

Teaching Assistant: Tao Jin (taojin AT ccs), Office hours 4:30-6:30 PM W, Room 208 WVH, Phone: 617-373-2495

Course Description

Textbook

Prerequisites

Grading

Academic Honesty and Integrity

Course Calendar (will include all handouts)

Term Project

Acknowledgments

Course Description

This course covers both the theory and practice of wireless networking. We will begin by studying the fundamentals of wireless communications (roughly a third of the course). We will then study widely-used wireless local area network standards and TCP/IP extensions for mobile and wireless networking (another third). The final third of the course will be devoted to the active research areas of multihop ad hoc networks and sensor networks. Topics covered will include

Fundamentals of wireless communications: channel capacity, antennas, signal fading, encoding, spread spectrum, and error control
Wireless network standards: IEEE 802.11, Bluetooth, WiMAX
TCP/IP for mobile & wireless communications: Mobile IP and TCP improvements for wireless
Multihop ad hoc networks: Routing and MAC protocols, topology and power control, and capacity of ad hoc networks
Sensor networks: MAC and routing protocols, query processing algorithms for sensor network databases

Textbook

W. Stallings, Wireless Communications and Networks, Prentice Hall, 2nd Edition, 2005

This textbook will be closely followed for almost the half of the course. The material on multihop and sensor networks will be taken from surveys, research papers, and other collections.

Prerequisites

CS G151 (Principles of Internetworking). If you have not taken CS G151 (or an equivalent), then you should not take CS G250. Please consult the instructor for any clarifications.

Grading

The tentative distribution for the course grade is: problem sets (15%), programming assignments (30%), a midterm (25%), and a final project (30%). Problem sets and assignments are due at their respective deadlines. No late submissions will be accepted!

Acknowledgments

The lecture slides for the first 8 lectures are largely based on those prepared by William Stallings and material provided by Prof. Guevara Noubir. The slides on ad hoc network routing are largely based on a tutorial by Prof. Nitin Vaidya. The sensor networks part of the course is partially supported by NSF IIS-0330201 "SENSORS: Data driven sensor networks".