72675 - Mobile Systems

Learning outcomes

Comprehension of the fundamental design principles of applications and systems working on mobile devices equipped with multiple etherogeneous network interface cards. Practice experience in designing applications distributed among mobile nodes and fixed servers.

Course contents

Course website: http://www.cs.unibo.it/~difelice/sm/

The Mobile Systems course investigates research and deployment aspects relating to mobile, ubiquitous and context-aware systems. Mobility issues are considered from three different perspectives.

The course starts by addressing the mobility management of devices and services. First, we discuss the current solutions aimed to support seamless handover and continuous connectivity at the link/IP/transport layers. Then, we review design patterns and middleware for the deployment of applications and services in mobile environments.  

The second part of the course presents protocols and applications for mobile next-generation network systems with capabilities of self-organization and self-configuration, like vehicular and device-to-device systems. Morever,  it  addresses mobility management issues over autonomous networks composed by unmanned devices able to control their own location (e.g. aerial and ground robot networks).

The third part of the course addresses the design and deployment of context-aware software systems, and introduces the main techniques and solutions related to context modeling and reasoning. In particular, the course focuses on Location-based Services (LBS), describing the actual technologies for indoor/outdoor localization, the existing frameworks for application deployment, and the research issues. 

Introduction

Software Architectures and Protocols for Mobility Management

• Link-layer support
• Network-layer support: Mobile IPv4, Mobile IPv6 and extensions (Fast MIPv6, Hierarchical MIPv6, Proxy MIPv6), Network Mobility (NEMO)
• Transport-layer and application-layer support
• Software architecture and middleware: design pattern, service discovery, session management, messaging, data synchronization

Next-generation Mobile Networks

• Spontaneous Smartphone Networks and Device-to-Device (D2D) technology
• Vehicular systems
• Autonomous networks (drones/ground robots)

Context-aware systems

• Context modeling and reasoning
• Human activity recognition
• Location-based services: localization techniques and frameworks

Readings/Bibliography

Handouts of lessons. Papers. Links to book chapter and online resources (all indicated on the course Web page)

Teaching methods

Lectures and exercises.

Assessment methods

Student seminar + project.

Teaching tools

Projector and blackboard. Handouts of lessons. Laboratories. Emulator of mobile devices.

Links to further information

http://www.cs.unibo.it/~difelice/sm/

Office hours

See the website of Marco Di Felice