Sensor network programming
project:In this project, you will program a network of
wireless sensor nodes. The code will be developed over the TinyOS
operating system and will run on a number of Tmote Sky sensors
that we have in our lab. The assignment can be entirely developed
and simulated on your home machine using the simulator TOSSIM,
that is available with the TinyOS distribution. The goal of the
sensor project is to implement a routing protocol for a network of
sensors, based on a shortest-path spanning tree. More information
about the spanning tree project
is here.
Mobile application development: Such a project is primarily about mobile computing applications, not about wireless communications, per se. But it is a useful way to gain expertise in mobile platforms such as Android and underlying wireless communication interfaces. Example applications you could build include (a) an ad hoc conferencing system; (b) a multi-player game; (c) a location tracking system whereby you can keep track of mobile unit's current geographicl location.
Analysis of Auto-Rate Functionality of IEEE 802.11: A feature provided by many 802.11 implementations is the ability of a 802.11 card to adjust the transmission rate in response to noise or interference. Recent studies have observed that sometimes such an auto-rate mechanism can have an adverse impact, yielding a much lower throughput for the system, far below the capacity of the network under the current conditions. Use Qualnet to develop a suitable simulation environment for evaluating the auto-rate functionality of 802.11.
Capacity Analysis of IEEE 802.16 WiMAX: Study the throughput capacity of WiMAX, and provide an analysis in terms of various physical and MAC layer parameters. Use Qualnet or develop a suitable simulation environment for evaluating key parts of WiMAX.
Analysis of IEEE 802.11 and/or IEEE 802.16 WiMAX in the presence of jamming: Analyze the vulnerability of 802.11 or 802.16 WiMAX to denial-of-service attacks, for instance, by jammers. Provide an analysis in terms of physical, MAC layer parameters, and energy constraints of the communicating nodes and the jammers. Use Qualnet or develop a suitable simulation environment.
Capacity of ad hoc networks: A
simulation study of the capacity of ad hoc networks exploring different
scenarios, including exploiting the mobility of nodes, and the presence
of a small number of infrastructure nodes. Can use Qualnet.
Locating a transmitter by triangulation: Identify the location of a transmitter by using signal strengths at multiple nearby receivers, and develop a location service. The sensor motes available in our lab could be used for this prototype.
MAC Analysis of 802.11 cards: Our research lab has an oscilloscope that captures the waveforms generated by 802.11 communication. This project will analyze a collection of commercial Wi-Fi cards and characterize their MAC parameters - max number of retransmissions, initial window size, and the backoff procedure.
Multi-hop ad hoc network using 802.11: In this project, you would set up a stand-alone multi-hop network using 802.11 links and implement a simple ad hoc network routing protocol for supporting a simple transport application (e.g., file tranfer, chat).
Using multiple interfaces (Bluetooth/Wifi) to extend connectivity: Seamlessly carry out an application (e.g., file transfer, chat) by connecting using a combination of Bluetooth, WiFi, and Internet connections.