CS 603 - Wireless Sensor Systems - Spring 2004

PROJECT  GUIDELINES

There will be one project (term paper) during the semester.  It will consist of two parts. The purpose of the first part of the project is to deepen and/or broaden the student knowledge and abilities in wireless sensor systems and wireless sensor networks. The purpose of the second part is to develop confidence and expertise in developing applications in the wireless sensor area. Project will be worth 35 percent of the final course grade.  The first part of the project will take the form of in-depth study of a topic in the wireless sensors area. The second part of the project may take any one of some combination of the following forms: a programming project, a simulation or analytical study, or a critical review of a topic. Projects involving implementations, tinyOS, eCOS, RTOS, and network simulations using ns2 or opnet are strongly encouraged. See the list of projects for further details.

The project may be done individually or in teams of two or more students, provided that the tasks of each team member  are clearly identified.  All projects must be approved by the instructor.  The  project will be completed in four phases, each being graded separately.  You are encouraged to discuss project ideas with the instructor and to submit your proposal as early as possible.

Topic Selection
You may choose the project topic from a list of sample topics handed out by the instructor or can suggest a topic related to material. After choosing a topic, you are requested to consult with the  instructor for getting his consent on the topic.  A number of suggested project topics are posted on the web. You are required to choose a project topic within the first three weeks of classes.

Basic Steps of the Part 2 of the Project
First, you need to identify a specific problem related to the course material, so that you should be able to write down the statement of problem in the introduction part of your final report. Second, you should learn the existing approaches to that problem by doing the literature search. Third, by doing brainstorming on the possible new approaches to that problem, you should come up with a new or modified approach that may be better than the existing approaches. Fourth, do some sort of performance analysis for all the available approaches and your approach using available free/commercial simulators or writing your own simulators or employing analytical techniques; just do your best in this part. Finally, write down your final report and, if required, give a presentation on your project. As explained below, you should not forget to submit your progress report by its due date.

Four Phases of Project
The  project will be completed in four phases, each being graded separately.  These phases are submission of  proposal, submission of progress report, giving a presentation, and submission of final report.

Proposal
You are required to submit a formal project proposal by January 27, 2004.  Your report should (in no partticular order) clearly state (a) the problem(s) you are going to address, (b) precise goals of the project, (c) deliverables of the project, (d) the issues you are going to tackle, (e) specific contributions you intend to make, (f) any possible innovations and/or new ideas you anticipate coming out of your work on the project, (g) a project plan - use a gantt chart and specify on the timeline what milestones you would achieve to attain the goals and deliverables of the project, and (h) any relevant literature referenced so far along with (online preferred and encouraged) copies of the referenced papers/material/websites/articles. I do not expect you to have started working on the project by the proposal due date but do expect that you have done preliminary research as you finalize your project. The proposal report should be in the paper format as well as online format (submitted via email).  

Progress Report
You are required to submit two midterm progress reports summarizing work already performed by February 17, 2004 and March 23, 2004, respectively.  Your progress reports should clearly introduce the specific problem on which you have been working. It should also contain a section describing the well-known approaches to the problem. It should also include any modifications to the project plan (gantt-chart etc). The first progress report may not contain any information about the performance analysis since I do not expect you to have started working on the performance analysis by its due date. The second progress report should have much more detail and should show significant progress. The progress reports should be in the paper format as well as online format (submitted via email)..   

Presentation
In the last two-four classes of the semester, each volunteer student will deliver a presentation on his/her project. Due to the shortage of time, some presentations may be held out of class time. For more information, please click project presentations and schedule .

Final Report
By April 15, 2004, 11:00AM you are requested to submit the final report to the instructor that is close to the quality of a workshop paper (submission to real workshops/conferences are strongly encouraged!) . The length of this report should be about 20-25 double-spaced typing pages. The final report will be evaluated based on the following five grading criteria. (These five grading criteria, along with its weights,  should be typed in the front cover of the report in the same way shown below). The final report should be in the paper format alongwith email submission of the report (in MS-Word, or LaTeX format), ppt copy of your presentation, and any supporting material (code files etc in a zipped file)..

          Grading  Criteria for Part 1 of the Project

• Introduction and Problem Statement:   10%
• Understanding of Known Solutions/Approaches:    30%
• Clear exposition of the material 30%
• Conclusions:   10%
• Organization/Written Presentation:   20%

         Grading  Criteria for Part 2 of the Project

• Introduction and Problem Statement:   10%
• Understanding of Known Solutions/Approaches:    30%
• Proposed Solutions supported by Simulations/Experiments/Working-Programs:   30%
• Conclusions:   10%
• Organization/Written/Oral Presentation:   20%

Part taken courtesy Hasan Cam@asu

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