Overview

The emergence of small and inexpensive processors and wireless networks has lead to the wide spread deployment of mobile information devices, such as cell phones, PDAs, and laptops, which promise to provide access to information any time and any where.  More recently, the integration of processing and networking into every-day items, such as kitchen appliances, cameras, and projectors, has the potential of expanding the role of mobile devices from information gateways into portals for interacting with the physical environment.

Developing mobile and pervasive applications remains, however, a doubting task.  High levels of device heterogeneity, limited and variable system resources, as well as system configuration are just a few of the challenges that complicate application development and deployment.   This course provides a broad overview of the issues involved in developing mobile and pervasive applications.  Some topics to be covered include: wireless technologies, disconnected operation, power and bandwidth adaptation, location awareness and tracking, resource discovery, Mobile-IP, and ad-hoc routing.

The course starts with a few introductory lectures on the characteristics of mobile and pervasive applications and the networking technologies that enable them.  The main part of the course, however, consists of student-lead discussions of relevant research papers.  A research-intensive group project in an area related to mobile or pervasive computing is a fundamental part of the course.  The result of these projects will be presented in a conference-like session at the end of the semester.  For a more comprehensive description of course requirements click here .  A list of suggested research projects is available here.

Grading

• Research paper presentation 20%
• Research paper summaries 20%
• Project report and presentation 50%
• Class participation 10%

Pre-requisites

Basic understanding of operating system principles and knowledge of network programming.

Schedule

Note: Some files are only accesible from computers within the UofT network.