Instructor:
Dr. Ajay Gupta

Office:
5440 Friedmann (387-5665 direct, 387-5645 messages)

Email:
ajay.gupta@wmich.edu

Timings and Room:
TR 9:30-10:45, 3309 Friedmann Hall, Call # 32143

Texts:
None. We will refer to several papers.

This course is a 3 credit hour graduate level research seminar, intended for students who plan to pursue research,design and development concerning the exciting and upcoming area of sensor network systems. This class will focuson the nature of computation and communication needed to design large-scale distributed smart sensor networks.

The course will cover two fronts: introduce students to the diverse literature on sensor network computing, andexpose them to the fundamental issues in designing and analyzing sensor network information processing applications. We will study emerging technology and standards, by reading papers on topics ranging from networking, language and OS support to algorithms for coordination, important constraints in scaling and deploying sensor network systems, and pervasive computing. We will also cover topics of querying, data routing, and network self-organization and how they can support high-level information processing tasks.

This course requires active and serious student participation in a semester-long group project. Groups of no more than four-five students will be responsible for one or more aspects of the design and development of a sensor network system. The group project is intended to complement the reading material by allowing the students to develop experimental skills for network and real-time operating system programming. Each group will have an opportunity to present its work to the class and to the department.

Topics Covered (tentative):
• Driving applications, constraints/challenges, collaborative information processing in sensor nets
• Wireless and wired networking issues for sensor nets
• Networking for sensor nets: directed diffusion, aggregation
• Network discovery/initialization, location/time services
• Networking for sensor nets: routing, large-scale analysis, power-aware computing and communication
• Localization and tracking; self-configuration/organization
• Information management: geometric querying, mobile clustering, leader election, kinetic data structure
• Physical constraints, power and other resources, resource management
• Tools, hw/sw Platforms: TinyOS, eCOS, RTOS, Motes, iBadges, Embedded PCs, Simulators
• Pervasive and amorphous computing