Comp61232:
Academic staff: Dr. Barry Cheetham & Dr. Nick
Filer
Aim
Understanding of concepts
underlying current developments in mobile communication systems and wireless
computer networks.
Level: M.Sc. Credit
rating: 15 credits (7.5 ECTS)
Degrees ACS (& others for suitably
qualified students)
Pre-requisites: Basic Mathematics
Preliminary
course-work: 40
hours
Lectures
& supervised laboratory work: 40 hours
Post
course-work: 40
hours assessed laboratory work
Assessment: 50 % laboratory and 50 % exam
Course material:
Barry's notes: MC12NOTES
Barry's slides: MC12SLIDES
Nick's part: http://moodle.cs.man.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=59
Coursework: MC12LABS
Revision/Exams: MC12Rev-exams
Learning Outcomes
1) Understanding of the
systems, protocols and mechanisms to needed to support mobility in
communications and computing equipment such as mobile phones, portable
computers, PDAs, etc. (A1,A2)
2) Understanding of the
issues involved and techniques used in the design of Medium Access Control
protocols for wireless Networks (A1,A2)
3) Understanding of digital
transmission methods, radio propagation and the effects of radio interference
(A1,A2)
4) Practical experience and
analysis of the effects of radio interference on transmissions between a
wireless LAN access point and a mobile computer, and the effectiveness of
bit-error control techniques.(A1,A2,B1,C1,C2,D4)
5) The experience of using
an industrial standard network simulation package, such as OPNET(B1,C1,C2,D4)
Assessment of learning outcomes
All outcomes are assessed
through examination and a practical project.
Contribution to programme learning
A1,A2, B1,C1,C2,D4
Supplemental books
Detailed Syllabus
Introduction to wireless
networking and mobile computing.
Recent history of wired and
wireless telephone and computer networks.
Convergence of cellular mobile telephony (2G and 3G) and wireless
computer networks (wireless LANs, PANs and WANs).
Protocols supporting
mobility
Application layer
issues: Multimedia,
Voice over IP (VoIP) and mobile VoIP.
Mobile Internet.
Network & transport
layer issues:
Mobile IP, Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP).
Mobile transport layer
protocols such as mobile-TCP, indirect-TCP. Wireless Application Protocol
(WAP).
Security in mobile computing
Security issues in wired & wireless networks: authentication,
confidentiality, integrity, authorisation, non-repudiation. Public &
symmetric key cryptography; hash functions. Differences between wired & wireless networks with
respect to security. Current
security protocols for wireless LANs.
WEP and future strategies.
Medium Access Control
(MAC) issues: MAC protocols for digital cellular
systems such as GSM. MAC protocols for wireless LANs such as IEEE802.11 and
HIPERLAN I and II. The near far effect. Hidden and exposed terminals. Collision
Avoidance (RTS-CTS) protocols.
Error control in mobile
networks
Error
mechanisms at physical layer. Hard & soft decision detection. Roles of
error correction & detection.
Hamming
distance. Block codes & convolutional
(tree) codes. Hamming codes & CRC checks.
Idea of
convolutional coder. Use of ‘soft decision Viterbi decoder’ for max-likelihood
decoding. Roles of CRC and convolutional
coding/decoding in IEEE802.11 Wireless LAN standards.
Introduction to digital
modulation & transmission.
Calculation of bit-error
probabilities when the channel is affected by the addition of Gaussian noise.
The need for modulation. Binary and multi-level (M-ary) amplitude-shift keying
(ASK), frequency-shift keying (FSK) and phase-shift keying (PSK).
Direct sequence spread
spectrum Adaptive Equalization Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing.
Characteristics of radio
propagation.
Antennas and radio
propagation. Multipath effects including fading.