Department of Electrical and Computer
Engineering
Wireless Communications and Networking
ECE 250 - Spring 2008
Prof. Volkan Rodoplu
Lectures: Monday/Wednesday
Office hours: After class, in classroom, and by appointment at my
office (Room 4113, Harold Frank Hall).
Revised Syllabus 2
(revised 04/24/08)
Please
refer to the calendar in the syllabus for all of the exam dates, and homework
due dates.
Announcements
|
05/12/08: Exam # 2: (1) Please arrive on time for Exam # 2 so that you do not miss any instructions in the beginning of the exam. (2) The exam duration is 1 hour and 55 minutes. (3) The exam has 5 problems, of increasing difficulty (One problem at Level 0, two problems at Level 1, and two problems at Level 2). Each problem may or may not have different parts. (4) The coverage is Papers # 1, # 2, # 6, and # 7. (5) Even though there will not be detailed calculations, you should still bring a calculator with you. The examination format is mostly applying your knowledge of the papers, and analyzing new situations to which the protocols in those papers may be applied. (6) The exam is CLOSED BOOK, except two double-sided "help sheets" which you may bring to the exam (1 side of a page, per research article, roughly.) 05/11/08: HW # 4 has been posted under the Homework section on this web page. The due date is as shown in the Revised Syllabus 2. 05/07/08: HW # 3: (1) Some new questions were added to HW # 3 at the end of class today. (2) For the part of HW # 3 that was assigned on 05/05/08, ONLY for the problem where you need to figure out f_N(R,\delta) for a sensor network with a single collection site, we will allow you to work in teams of at most two students. (Hence, you can do it individually as well.) For all of the other problems, you will need to work out your own solutions. In order to make the grading easier for us, if you work in a group of 2 for that single problem, then please photocopy (or copy) the solution from your partner, and hand in a single homework per student. However, please write down on that problem's solution only, who your partner was for that problem. Having a single homework handed in per student will make the grading easier for us. (3) There is no change on the due date of HW # 3; it is due 05/12/08, at the beginning of class. 05/05/08: HW # 3 was assigned in class today, and is due next week Monday, 05/12/08, at the beginning of class. 05/05/08: For Exam # 2: The coverage is Papers 1, 2, 6, and 7. You are allowed to bring only *two* double-sided help sheets to the exam (hence, a total of 4 sides of paper). Hence, you will have roughly one side per research article, which should be enough to distill a paper, or write down reminders. 04/29/08: For Exam # 1: You are allowed to bring to the exam and use *one-page* of notes, both sides. You may write as much as possible, as long as it fits within this space of a two-sided page. 04/29/08: The links to the lecture notes and the homework became disabled temporarily due to an IT problem. These have been fixed. 04/24/08: IMPORTANT: The syllabus has been revised, and has been posted as "Revised Syllabus 2" above. Please print it out and examine the revised calendar. The following changes have been made: (1) We are dropping the "Scaling Laws" papers from the reading list. Hence, we will be reading the S-MAC and UWAN-MAC papers the week after Exam # 1. The reason is that, based on the interest in QoS issues in class discussions, Papers # 9 and # 10 have been added back to the curriculum and have taken preference over the Scaling Laws papers. (2) The homework due dates of HW # 3 and HW # 4 are now shown on the syllabus. We also show when these homeworks will be assigned. (3) The coverage of Exams # 2 and # 3 have accordingly changed. We show the papers on the calendars on which Exams # 2 and # 3 will be based. 04/24/08: Exam # 1 FORMAT: The exam covers Lectures # 1 - # 4 in the Lecture notes section below, as well as HW # 1. There will be two parts to Exam # 1: Part A: Conceptual Problems, and Part B: Simple Calculations. In each part of the exam, the problems are organized in increasing difficulty. Suggestion: Start with the part of the exam that you feel most comfortable with, then if you get to problems in that part where you start getting stuck, switch to the other part, and do the simple problems in the other part next until you start getting stuck there. Then, choose either part and complete the more difficult problems as much as you can. You may or may not be able to complete the most difficult problems. Do your best. You need to have a solid grasp of the parts of the lecture notes that I wrote on the board in class. (Everything that I wrote on the board is fair game). For Part B of the exam, you need to remember the simple equations and relationships such as the path loss model, the Doppler spread (as a function of velocity, carrier frequency, and angle of arrival), lognormal shadowing model; these will not be given to you. The following are the only equations that will be given to you in a table at the beginning of the exam: (1) Friis free space transmission formula, (2) the pdf, cdf, mean, median, and variance of the Rayleigh distribution, (3) the Q-function table. You may or may not need all of these during the exam. Part B of the exam will involve only simple algebraic calculations. We will not ask you to evaluate any integrals by hand. You are allowed to use scientific calculators, but you are not allowed to program formulas into your calculators. To guard against anyone's possibly being disadvantaged, we will be grading your understanding in the exam, rather than your plugging and chugging into the formulas. For simple algebraic formulas, we do expect you to arrive at the correct numerical answers. For other formulas that involve Q-functions, for example: If you have set up your formulas correctly, and have simplified your answer to the extent possible, but only have a Q-function remaining in the final answer, we will take off 1 point, for example. However, if there are major conceptual errors in setting up the equations, we will take off more points.
04/22/08: HW # 1 Solutions have been posted under Homework Solutions on this web page. 04/21/08: VERY IMPORTANT: HW # 2 will be due April 28, 2008, Monday! (not April 23). This is a challenging homework, and you will not be assigned any homework this Wednesday. This will be the only homework due the week of April 28, 2008. (Please keep in my mind that we have our Exam # 1 on April 30, 2008, as well.) Note that in HW # 2, we are interested in your own design of a protocol. You do NOT have to use the enclosure algorithm, but can use features of it, as you need it. We are interested in the most original and technically sound designs. The problem statement is again as follows: Given two groups of users, pedestrians and cars, over a deployment region, design a protocol that (1) conserves the battery energy of the mobile devices of the pedestrian users, and (2) leaves no user isolated, i.e. all users, cars and pedestrians are able to send information to each other. We are interested in ad hoc network of these users, i.e. no base station infrastructure is allowed. Also, we would like to potentially allow any user to be able to send information to any other user in this network (note that "send information" does not have to be direct transmission; it can involve relaying, for example.) We would like you to come up with original ideas, a protocol design, and as detailed a description of your design as possible. It is important to provide solutions and subsolutions to important design issues as they arise. It is not enough to only highlight the issues and leave them unsolved. You will need to make certain assumptions: for example, about traffic patterns, about user mobility patterns. Justify your assumptions. Try to make your assumptions arise from as realistic scenarios as possible. 04/16/08: We have posted the "how to prepare for the in-class discussion" handout on this web page, in the Lecture Handouts section below. This gives some suggestions for individual preparation. (It does not cover how to prepare in a group setting.) 04/16/08: If you are still looking for people with whom to study to prepare for discussions, please stay after class and meet other people who have similar interests. 04/16/08: Exam # 1: will cover up to the end of the lecture on 04/16/08. The exam will emphasize conceptual understanding over calculation. It will have a structure where the questions start from easy and ramp up to difficult. The lecture notes have a lot more material than what we covered in class. The parts that we covered in class will be emphasized. (In particular, you are not expected to know the detailed calculations based on electromagnetism which appear in the lecture notes; however, you are expected to know the relevant results of those, which we covered in class.) 04/16/08: In order to prepare for the paper discussions, you are welcome to study together in groups. However, for each paper, after the class discussion is over, you need to do the homework (starting with HW # 2) entirely on your own. 04/14/08: For HW # 1 only: You are encouraged to work in groups of 2 or 3 (or if you prefer, by yourself). This will apply to only HW # 1. The group size should not exceed 3 people. If you decide to work in a group, then, you need to hand in only a SINGLE HW # 1 for the entire group. Please write the names of all the group members on top of the homework when you hand it in. If you are looking for people with whom to form a group, then please stay after class on Wednesday and meet other classmates who might be looking to form groups as well. 04/14/08: HW # 1 due date: HW # 1 due date was announced as April 28, 2008 in class, but the correct due date is April 21, 2008, as noted below on this web page. So, please hand in HW # 1 in the beginning of class next Monday. 04/06/08: Class will resume on 04/14/08. A REVISED SYLLABUS has been posted above, and will be followed for the remainder of the quarter. In this revised syllabus, the only change appears in the "course calendar". Papers # 9 and # 10 and their discussion have been dropped from the course syllabus, and everything has been shifted down by one week. Note that "Student Presentations" have been retained. 03/31/08: Please check for announcements regularly in this space. (No announcements will be sent via mass email; they will instead be posted here.) |
|
|
LECTURES
How to Prepare for In-class
Discussions
HOMEWORK -- Solutions
due
(Total of 6 problems) Please do only
Problems 1, 2, 3 from Part A ("HW 1"),
and Problems 1,
2, 3 from Part B ("HW 2") of this document.
Homework is due at the beginning of class on the due date indicated in the course calendar in the syllabus.
All of the homework problems will be posted in this space, as the course progresses.