Fall 17: ECE/CS 439: Wireless Networks

ECE/CS
                        439
   
    Time and Location:
   W/F 11 - 12:15pm @ 1105 Siebel Center
    Instructor:                  Romit Roy Choudhury (croy@illinois.edu)
    Office hours:              After class

    Course TA:                Sheng Shen <sshen19@illinois.edu>               

    Reference books:       (1) Communication Systems Engineering, Proakis (UCSD)
                                         (2) A Top Down Approach to Computer Networking, James Kurose (UMass)
                                         (3) Understanding Digital Signal Processing, Richard Lyons (UCSC)
                                         (4) Mathematical Foundations of Computer Networking, S. Keshav (U. Waterloo)


Course Topics:

    Foundations:
    - Basic mathematics for CS/CE students (signals, noise, FFTs, etc.) ... notes
    - Foundations of wireless communications (what happens inside a wireless radio -- modulation, coding, synchronization, etc.) ... notes
    - Channel models (noise, multipath, fading, etc.)
    - Modern radios and techniques (OFDM)
... notes
    - Understanding data rates, power control, and directional antennas (MIMO) ... notes, slides

    - Wireless algorithms and protocols at the MAC layer (ALOHA, randomized backoff, hierarchical backoff, gossip) ... slides
    - Coding, (successive) interference cancellation, capacity (SIC)

    System Design:
    - Case studies (WiFi, Bluetooth, 4G, LTE, RFID, 60GHz) ... slides
    - Error recovery (PPR, ReMAP, ZigZag)
    - Energy efficiency (PSM, SleepWell) ... slides
    - Routing over wireless networks (ad hoc networks, mesh networks, sensor networks)
    - TCP over wireless networks (why TCP needs re-design)

    - Wireless security
    - Applications of wireless signals 1 (GPS systems and algorithms) ... slides
    - Applications of wireless signals 2 (motion sensing)

    Future Facing:
    - Battery-free wireless communication (back-scatter)
    - Signal decomposition (wireless imaging, interference cancellation, cloud-based diversity combining)
    - Robotic wireless networks (what if wireless base stations were moving on drones or ground robots)



Course Load (tentative):
(1) 2 homeworks
(2) 2 MPs
(3) 1 Mid term
(4) 1 mini project
(5) NO finals.

Grading (tentative): Homeworks (20%), MPs (30%), Mid-term (25%), Mini project (25%)

Prerequisites: CS/ECE 438 (Networking) and basic mathematical and programming maturity (any one of MATLAB, R, Python, or Java/C). Students without any networking background should talk to the instructor.