Times: Tuesday 4:30pm - 7:00pm
Location: Math & Psychology 106
Instructor: Nirmalya Roy
Instructor's Office Location and Hours: ITE 421,
Thursday 1:00pm - 2:30pm, or by appointment
Instructor's Email: nroy at umbc dot edu
Course Descriptions: This is an upper-undergradaute and first graduate-level course in computer networks for students in information systems. This course will introduce students to the key concepts of underlying wired, and wireless networking. The layered architecture of the network protocol stack will be the focus of discussion. Alongside, a variety of case studies will be drawn from the Internet, combined with practical programming exercises. At the end of the semester, students will well understand several concepts, including the Internet architecture, HTTP, DNS, P2P, Sockets, TCP/IP, Routing protocols, IEEE 802.11, wireless and sensor networking, mobile computing, cellular and satellite networks, security, etc.
Course Objectives: This course aims at introducing the students to modern computer networks, in particular the Internet. We will discuss basic network architecture, design principles, different protocols, and applications. We will study the application, transport, networking, and link layers. We will also cover basic topics of network security and management. Students are expected to perform various projects and homework assignments to obtain hands on knowledge.
Course Topics:
Required Textbook:
Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach, 6th Ed., by James F. Kurose and Keith W. Ross. Addison-Wesley, 2012
Course Requirements and Grading:
| Homework, Quizzes & Class Participation |
30% |
| Hands-on Data Communications Research
& Development Project |
20% |
|
1 mid-term exam |
20% |
| Final exam |
30% |
Quiz and Exam Makeup: There will be
no exam or quiz makeup. Missed exam/quiz will result in zero mark.
Attendance: Students are
expected to attend all lectures.
Tentative Course Schedule:
(Subject to change as the semester
progresses)
| Week |
Date |
Topic |
Handout |
Due
|
Notes |
|
1 |
1/27 |
|
Course
overview, logistics, etc. |
Course Syllabus |
Course Overview |
|
| 2 |
2/3 |
Introduction to Basic Terms and Concepts: Internet, network edge, core, circuit and packet switching, TDM, FDM, delay, loss etc. |
Homework
1 |
Introduction
Chapter 1 |
||
| 3 |
2/10 |
Introduction to Basic Terms and Concepts: protocol layers, layered architecture etc. Application Layer: client-server, peer-peer, services etc. |
Quiz 1 |
Homework 1 due |
Application
Layer Chapter 2 |
|
|
4 |
2/17 |
Application layer: Introduction to HTTP, FTP, Email etc. | Research Project Directions | |||
| 5 |
2/24 |
|
Application layer: Introduction to DNS, Socket programming etc. |
Hands-On
Project Plan Due |
||
| 6 |
3/3 |
|
Application layer: Introduction to P2P file sharing, Socket programming etc. |
Quiz 2 |
||
| 7 |
3/10 |
|
Transport layer: Introduction to transport-layer services, multiplexing/demultiplexing etc. Midterm Exam Review; Quiz 2 discussion |
Transport
Layer Chapter 3 Midterm Exam Review |
||
| 8 |
3/17 |
Spring Break |
||||
| 9 |
3/24 |
Travel to IEEE PerCom 2015 Conference (No Class) |
|
|||
|
10 |
3/31 |
Midterm Exam |
|
|||
| 11 |
4/7 |
Transport layer: reliable data transfer, pipelined data transfer protocols, Go-Back-N, Selective Repeat. |
||||
| 12 |
4/14 |
|
Hands-on Data Communications
Project Update TCP Continued: flow control, connection management, congestion control, TCP congestion case study. |
Homework 2 |
|
Project Update Requirement |
| 13 |
4/21 |
Network Layer: Introduction, Routing & Forwarding etc. Network Layer: Internet Protocol (IP), addressing, NAT, ICMP, IPv6, tunneling etc. |
Network Layer Chapter 4 | |||
| 14 |
4/28 |
Network
Layer: Routing algorithms: link state and distance vector, Internet
routing, BGP, broadcast using center-based trees etc. |
Homework 2 due |
|||
| 15 |
5/5 |
Final Project Demo Presentation |
Quiz 3 (Study Guide) |
|||
| 16 |
5/12 |
Final Exam Review Final Project Demo Presentation (Second 7 groups - 15 mins each group) |
Final Exam Review | |||
| 17 |
5/19 |
Final Exam (3:30--5:30PM) | Final Project Report due 5/17 by email | Final Project Report Template Sample IEEE Style File |
The idea of this project is to set up those real devices in your own living environment and find out what communication protocol has been employed to transport the DATA and how useful it is for that specific application? Is there a better alternative? At the end of this study we would like to hear from each group of students about your recommendation for a specific device, the technology it has used, how it has been deployed to communicate data? A comparative study on different communication protocols we use in our day to day lives, either knowingly or unknowingly based on different metrics such as range, power consumption, RSSI signal strength, security etc., would be well appreciated by the peers and albeit by the instructor!
All the devices will be provided by the Mobile, Pervasive and Sensor Computing (MPSC) Lab in the Information Systems department at UMBC. We heartily acknowledge our sponsors Constellation Energy to make this student hands-on data communications and networking project possible in Spring 2015.
The
project is motivated by our effort on developing non-intrusive,
energy-efficient, cost-effective scalable technological solutions for
green building and independent
living
applications. Please see the
following Wall Street Journal article on sensor enabled technologies
for independent living. Please recall that it is not possible to scale
this system if the underlying communication protocols are not robust,
energy-efficient, secure, fault-tolerant and universally acceptable
with their coexistence in a
variety of different hardware or software domains.
Logistics, Requirements & Deliverables:
1. Form a group of 3 students at the undergraduate-level and 2 students at the graduate-level.
2. Decide by the last week of February what devices you want for your project. Keep in mind that our goal is to find out which device should be an ideal choice for large scale smart home and green building energy management applications. So keep an eye on the cost of the device along with its hardware and software versatility to make a win-win recommendation.
3. You are expected to give a demo of how your system works, what underlying communication protocol has been deployed and why?
4.
Submit a 3-page report (undergrads team) and a 6-page report (grads
team) to the instructor by email. More details will be provided later.
| Group No. |
Team Member |
Project Title |
Device |
| 1. |
Harman Birring, Permveer Birring, & Marc Julian |
Energy Consumption in Daily Life |
Belkin Wemo Insight Switch |
| 2. |
Robert B. Heffern |
Z-Wave Smart Energy Usage Meters – A Comparison and Accuracy Study |
Z-Wave USB Dongle, Enerwave Switch, Aeon Labs Smart Switch |
| 3. |
Michelle Petruska & Andrea Zemp |
Smart Plug Mental Health Monitoring and Suicide Prevention |
eMonitor (Sitesage) |
| 4. |
Mohammad Khan, Andrew Kennedy & Adnan Fayyaz |
Smart Metering |
D-Link 3-Pin WiFi Smart Plug |
| 5. |
Zheng Zhao & Rakshya Shrestha |
Activity Monitoring and Energy Consumption Measurement using Enmetric System |
Insteon iMeter Solo and Modem |
| 6. |
Ryan Sipes, John Grigg & Qudus Lawal |
Energy Consumption Measurement Across Mutiple Homes |
Insteon iMeter Solo and Modem |
| 7. |
Faryal Mahmood, Lubaba Shahid, & Jovaria Fatima |
D-Link Wi-Fi Smart Plug Study |
D-Link Wi-Fi Smart Plug (DSP-W215) |
| 8. |
Apeksha Shankar, Jonathan Gott, Tiffany Anne Quezon & Uyen Ho |
iMeter: The Future of Data Monitoring |
Insteon iMeter Solo and Modem |
| 9. |
Sulaiman Aslam, Indima Fernando |
Life With Nest Thermostat |
Nest Thermostat |
| 10. |
Richard Bae, Michael Stoll, Alec Nussbaum |
Efficiency in the Household |
Z-Wave Smart Energy Power Strip, Veralite modem |
| 11. |
Zach Hopkins, Deanna Shoop & Ankush Rattan |
Household Energy Hogs |
Z-wave Smart Energy Switch (DSC06106-ZWUS) & Aeon Labs DSA02203-ZWUS Z-Wave Z-Stick Series 2 USB Dongle |
| 12. |
Ermon Belew, Ravi Inamdar & Joseph George |
Xbox One Energy Manipulation Through iMeter |
Insteon iMeter Solo and Modem |
| 13. |
Daravatey Sokhon, Jae Whan Woo & Win Pongsakul |
Virtual Energy Auditing |
Z-wave Smart Energy Power Strip |
| 14. |
Nayak Kapur, Cailin O'Connor |
Monitor the consumption of energy in the house |
Z Wave Smart Energy Power Strip |