King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals
College of Computer Sciences and Engineering
Computer Engineering Department
 
Local and Metropolitan Area Networks (COE 541)
 
 
Course Projects Working Framework
 

  1. First 1-4 weeks of semester: Students are expected to independently carry out literature Survey on their selected topics, compile information of relevant papers in a progress report PR-1, have an action plan of what they are going to contribution and more specifically on their project implementation, and prepare for a presentation to expose all the above aspects to the class and instructor. During this period, the student is expected to carry out literature survey of no less than 4 technical papers on his project topic, interact with the instructor regarding the major issues of his project, prepare for a presentation on his literature survey and planned implementation for the next phase.  A 15-minute presentation is to be given in week 5 in front of the class and instructor. This part will be rated 25% of project for both presentation and timely submission of PR-1.

  2. From week 5 to week 10: Students are expected to carry out the implementation part of their project by taking into account: (1) his presented or revised action plan, and (2) the instructor observations formulated during or after his presentation. During this period, the student is expected to interact with the instructor regarding the major design issues, difficulties in addressing some parts, resource problems, or any kind of problem that require specific attention to avoid negative impact on the project.  Prepare report PR-2 after adding  the implementation aspects presented above to P-1. A 15-minute presentation involving success and failure design and implementation aspects is to be given in week 11 in front of the class and instructor. This part will be rated 35% of project for both presentation and timely submission of PR-2.

  3. From week 11 to week 14: Students are expected to carry out: (1) debugging and testing of their implementation and refer to instructor in case of problems, (2) carry out performance evaluation of the project with data collection, (3)  revise PR-1 by including the performance evaluation and detailed analysis of collected results, (4) prepare the final project presentation. During this period, the student is expected to interact with the instructor regarding the debugging issues and performance interpretation. A presentation involving obtained performance and students comments on obtained results will be delivered by the team (or student) before the last day of classes (week 15). The emphasis should be here on the method and results. This part will be rated 40% of project for both presentation and timely submission of PR-3 which is the final report which includes (1) literature survey, problem statement, approach used by the student, and obtained performance with student comments. The student is to submit a zipped folder including all of original word reports (not pdf), well documented source code, evaluation data, and reference papers. A demo to the instructor will also be required.

SAMPLE COURSE PROJECTS, RESEARCH PRESENTATION, AND RESOURCE FOR WIRELESS LAN

Developing a wireless sensor network using MOTE-KIT5040CC (900 MHz) kit. The objective is to set up an Ad-Hoc WLAN that consists of a number of Motes, each has a wireless card with some acceleration sensor, that operates as a mobile server. The client is set up on a PC with a standard  MOTE-KIT5040CC access point to route messages from the client to the server. The client is operated by using a GUI to allow the user to issue some commands to the server like streaming sensor data from the a given server node to the client in addition to displaying the streamed data for the user. The client request is routed to the client motes.  The student will develop both of the client program and distributed sever program. The hardware is available with the instructor. The deliverables are the client and server programs and the performance measure of the distributed sever such as the timing of the requests and quality of service.    

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Developing a Reliable Peer-to-Peer protocol for WLAN using the Stargate embedded system. The stargate embedded system consists of 8 stargate embedded processors each has a 500 MHz Xscale processor with a wireless communication card. The system is intended to work as WLAN where one module (connected to a PC) serves as an access point to the VLAN. The objective of the project is to develop a Reliable Peer-to-Peer protocol (RPTP). In this case, the RPTP consists of two main threads (1) a communication thread (TC), and (2) a processing thread (TP). TC permanently listen the WLAN to capture any communication initialed by one of its peers. On arrival of packet, TC extract its data and activates data-update thread (DUT) which updates the state variables in the local memory of this module. Note that thread DUP is activated only if there is an arriving packet. TP normally examines the state variables and may decide to broadcast some action to its peer modules. For this TP posts the data to be broadcasted in a specific buffer so that TC can perform the broadcast whenever possible, i.e. all communications are carried out by TC. The student is expected to participate (with an RA) in developing a testbed system which allows modules to run TC and TP, in addition to the generation of broadcast request within TP. To study reliability, each module is to record packet identifiers for each arriving packet as part of the TC thread in addition to the total time needed to complete a customized broadcast with potentially some acknowledgement. This might require investigation of a customized UDP protocol or an imperative Poll-based communication (like in SNMP). The uploaded data from the modules will serve determining the degree of reliability of the used protocol.         

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Assume an IEEE802.11 wireless LAN setting with one access point and N (variable) terminals on the ground. The terminals generate real-time traffic such as voice and utilize the polling mechanism to transport this traffic. Write a code to simulate such network. Produce results such as terminal throughput, network throughput, average delay for payloads, drop rate, etc. (from Dr. Ashraf Mahmoud).

 

Assume two nodes are communicating using TCP/IP. The TCP initializes a transmission window and starts sending sequenced segments. The window size increases as the session progresses increasing the utilization of the link. When congestion is occurring (lost segments or their acknowledgments) the TCP reduces the window size to reduce outgoing traffic. This leads to lower utilization of the link. After some time of no data loss, TCP increases the window size again to increase the link utilization and so on. For wireless links, packets may be lost due to errors and not necessarily due to congestion and buffer overflow. Write a simulation code that emulates this process. Determine the actual parameters used in current TCP/IP based transport. For a given arrival process of segments at the source nodes, and a given error model on the wireless link, find the average throughput of the wireless link and the average segment delay (from Dr. Ashraf Mahmoud)

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Network architecture for smart healthcare will open up new opportunities for continuous monitoring of assisted and independent-living residents. While preserving resident comfort and privacy, the network manages a continuous medical history. Unobtrusive area and environmental sensors combine with wearable interactive devices to evaluate the health of spaces and the people who inhabit them. Authorized care providers may monitor residents’ health and life habits and watch for chronic pathologies. Multiple patients and their resident family members as well as visitors are differentiated for sensing tasks and access privileges. High costs of installation and retrofit are avoided by using ad hoc, self-managing networks. Based on the fundamental elements of future medical applications (integration with existing medical practice and technology, real-time and longterm monitoring, wearable sensors and assistance to chronic patients, elders or handicapped people). The student will review wireless systems that will extend healthcare from the traditional clinical hospital setting to nursing and retirement homes, enabling telecare without the prohibitive costs of retrofitting existing structures. The student is to identify the technical components of a telecare wireless sensor system. IN addition the student implements some of these components on the Stargate WLAN. 
 

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