CSE 701: Advanced Topics in Wireless Networks

Seminar Webpage

http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/faculty/dimitrio/courses/cse701_s11/cse701_s11.html

Seminar Staff

Dimitrios Koutsonikolas, Assistant Professor
Email: dimitrio@buffalo.edu
Office: 237 BELL

Seminar Time and Location

TTh, 5:00 PM - 6:20 PM, 242 BELL

Office Hours

TTh, by appointment (please use email).

Overview

The purpose of the seminar is to present and discuss the state-of-the-art on a set of topics in wireless networking, focusing on 802.11 wireless LANs (WLANs) and multihop mesh networks (WMNs). We will approach the various topics from a practical/systems perspective. Course material will consist of a mix of current practice and advanced research. The course will be roughly divided into three parts. The first part will begin with an introduction to the basic 802.11 mechanisms (channel access, rate adaptation), and then it will cover the state-of-the-art in wireless mesh networking (link quality based routing, WMN deployments, measurements and evaluation). The second part will study “exotic” WMN routing protocols exploiting techniques such as opportunistic routing and network coding. We will see how this class of protocols blends into the network layer mechanisms from the upper or lower layers. Finally, in the third part of the course, we will discuss recent advances in wireless networking, such as cognitive radio networks, white space networking, and advanced MAC protocols. The focus here will be on the interaction of the MAC layer with the underlying PHY layer. We will revisit the design of fundamental MAC layer techniques (channel access, rate adaptation, error recovery/estimation) to exploit such PHY-MAC cross-layer interactions.

Seminar Credits

You can take this seminar for 1 or 3 credits. With 1 credit, your responsibility is to read papers, write reviews, and present at least one paper to the class. With 3 credits, you will also design and carry out a research project.

Seminar Structure

Each week, we will discuss two papers, one in each lecture. A choice of papers from top networking and systems conferences (MobiCom, SIGCOMM, NSDI, INFOCOM) will be given for the students to pick which ones to present. All students are required to read the papers scheduled for presentation each week, to participate in discussions in class, and to submit reviews for a subset of the papers. In detail, the course includes the following assignments:

Paper reading: we will read two papers per week. For those of you who are not used to reading academic papers, I recommend reading "How to Read a Paper" by S. Keshav.
Class presentations: Each student will make one or two (depending on the number of students) class presentations of research papers from the reading list. To better prepare for the presentation, you are required to do the following:
- Email me (in plain text) your answers to the talk preparation questions 7 days before the presentation.
- Schedule a preparation meeting with me the week before the presentation. Please have your slides ready for the preparation meeting.
You can find a set of recommendations on how to give a good presentation here.
Paper reviews: you will write a review for each paper we discuss. The format of a review can be found here. Examples of good reviews can be found here.
- You are required to email the reviews to me by 02:59am on Tuesdays/Thursdays. Please only txt files!
- Each student can skip up to 7 reviews.
- The presenter of a paper does not have to submit a review.
Class discussions: discussions are an important part of the seminar. You are expected to attend every class and ask questions/make comments.
Class project: Each student registered for 3 credits will also conduct a research project. Projects can be done individually or in teams of 2-3 people. Written project proposals, intermediate and final reports, and a project presentation at the end of the semester are required. Details can be found here.
Class projects - Spring 2011.

Dimitrios Koutsonikolas