15-821/18-843 Fall 2007

15-821/18-843: Mobile and Pervasive Computing

Professors M. Satyanarayanan & Dan Siewiorek

Fall 2007
Course Web page at http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~15-821

Logistics

12 units
Tuesdays (August 28 to December 4) Time: 3:00pm - 6:00pm in WeH 8220
no textbook; papers will be handed out as required
no final exam

Resources

Reading list bibliography and directory with all readings in PDF format (as on CD-ROM).
Course schedule, including mapping of students to presentations
List of projects
Evaluation forms that will be used for grading presentations, project checkpoints, final project demonstrations, business plans and research proposals.
Slides on selling a vision, writing a research proposal and writing a business plan.
Example research propsals and business plans are in this directory.

Description

This is a course exploring research issues in the emerging fields of mobile computing and its close relative, pervasive computing. Many traditional areas of computer science and computer engineering are impacted by the constraints and demands of mobile and pervasive computing. Examples include network protocols, power management, user interfaces, file access, usability and security. This will be an "advanced" course in the truest sense --- most, if not all, the topics discussed will be ones where there is little consensus in the research community on the best approaches. The course will also offer significant "hand-on" experience in this area.

Each student will have to present and lead the discussion on a number of papers. Students will work in groups of three under the guidance of a mentor on a hands-on project. Each student will also be required to write one of two documents based on an idea in mobile and pervasive computing: (a) a research proposal (similar in spirit to an NSF proposal) or (b) a short business plan for a commercial opportunity. Grading will be based on the quality of the presentations, the project, the proposal or business plan, and brief in-class quizzes on the readings.

Prerequisites

Knowledge of operating systems and distributed systems at the 15-712 level.
Knowledge of hardware and architecture at the 15-740 level.

If in doubt, check with one of the instructors before registering.

Topics

Mobile Hardware
Wireless Communication
Ubiquitous Data Access
Resource Scarcity
Sensing and Actuation
Location and Context Awareness
Security and Privacy
Design Methodologies and Infrastructure
End-to-End Application Considerations

Faculty

M. Satyanarayanan
Office: WeH 8208
Phone: x8-3743
Email: satya@cs.cmu.edu
Admin assistant: Tracy Farbacher, WeH 8207 (x8-8824, tracyf@cs.cmu.edu)

Dan Siewiorek
Office: NSH 3519
Phone: x8-2570
Email: dps@cs.cmu.edu
Admin assistant: Laura Forsyth, WeH 4207 (x8-2619, forsyth@cs.cmu.edu)

Guest Faculty

Asim Smailagic
Office: HbH 1217
Phone: x8-7863
Email: asim@cs.cmu.edu

Important Dates

Sep 25: Project Checkpoint-1 Presentations
Oct 30: Project Checkpoint-2 Presentations
Nov 6: Business Plans and Research Proposal tutorial
Nov 13: Selection of Research Proposal/Business Plan Topics (one page)
Nov 27: Business Plan/Research Proposals submission
Dec 4: Final Project Demonstrations and Posters

Grading Weights

Quality of the presentations (25%)
Project execution & demo/poster (40%)
Business plan summary or research pre-proposal (25%)
Quizzes & Class participation (10%)
There will be no exams in the course.

Last updated 11/06/2007 by Satya