Courses:

Open Programmable Platforms in Telecommunications

http://meag.tele.pw.edu.pl/pubs/freestyle/eoppt/eoppt.html

The goal of this course is to introduce open interfaces (APIs) used to create telecommunications services. An open interface in this context is one that (1) is standardized (not vendor-specific) and (2) makes the functionality of the underlying telecommunications network or that of users' terminals available to independent service developers and providers. Open interfaces, which can be quite easily used by a wide community of developers, make it possible to develop and deploy a broad range of highly specialized services.

The course focuses on services possible to be implemented in mobile networks. The interfaces covered by the course include those available in mobile phones (Java 2 Micro Edition), and those in specialized gateways to the telecommunications network (OSA/Parlay).

Hands-on approach is emphasized. Programming examples are presented, and code walkthroughs are carried out. Students develop a mobile phone application (midlet), as their project assignments. Familiarity with object oriented programming concepts is assumed. Fundamentals of the Java programming language are outlined, when necessary. For those not previously exposed to the Java programming language, the course can be a soft introduction to Java basics.

Mobile and context-aware services

http://meag.tele.pw.edu.pl/pubs/freestyle/umik/index.html

The course is an introduction to ubiquitous (pervasive) computing. This is a new and dynamic discipline, which integrates modern computing and telecommunications (wireless) technologies. Its goal is to create applications (services) that (a) use the current state of the user or his environment (the so-called context) and (b) do not require direct user involvement. A simple and popular example is the class of location-based services available in cellular networks. The current position of the user is an example of a simple context. The context may be much more comprehensive, however. It may include, e.g., temperature, ambient light intensity, the user's pulse rate, his distance from a selected object, the location of other users, current stock prices, applications being run on the user's workstations, etc. Using a more comprehensive context may make an existing service more useful or enable the creation of entirely new services.

Ubiquitous computing applications are often distributed. They can be run, for example, on mobile terminals (mobile phones, PDAs) or small, specialized embedded systems. The field of ubiquitous computing includes different layers and elements of a system: miniature hardware platforms, context acquisition techniques, wireless communications technologies, operating systems and APIs for small platforms, middleware layers and applications. This course is self-contained and introduces all of them. However, the focus is definitely on the middleware layer and the application layer.

Wireless Networking

http://meag.tele.pw.edu.pl/pubs/pdf/ewnet.pdf

The goal of this course is to introduce material about wireless data transmission systems: WPANs, WLANs and WMANs. At first, transmission techniques used in wireless networks are introduced - it is direct sequence spread spectrum and frequency-hopped spread spectrum schemes and Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing. In this course, the most important, mature and efficient WPAN, WLAN and WMAN standards are described, and also some evolving new standards are introduced. Among various technologies proposed for PAN networks, the description of the infrared standard IrDA and the RF technologies: Bluetooth, IEEE 802.15.3, IEEE 802.15.4 are given. In the section of WLAN, the 802.11 family of standards are compared with ETSI technologies - HiperLAN 1 and HiperLAN 2. The last group of the wireless systems - WMAN is represented by the LMDS system and the 802.16 family of standards.