Debre Tabor University

Wireless
Communications
And mobile computing
By H.K
 Introduction
• Mobile computing = doing operation using mobile computing
system.
• Mobile computing systems – systems that can be easily moved
physically and can perform operations while they are being moved.
• Examples are laptops, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and mobile
phones.
• Wireless communication involves the process of sending/receiving
information through invisible waves in the air.
Introduction…
• Wireless communications is one of the biggest
engineering success
• market size dominating the whole economy
• e.g + 4 billion GSM subscribers of the world
• Working habits, have been changed “anywhere,
anytime.”
• mobility of workers have increased
Introduction …
• large number of applications have been developed,
• Wireless sensor networks monitor factories,
• wireless links replace the cables between computers and keyboards, mouse
and other peripheral devices
• wireless positioning systems monitor the location of trucks
History : How it all started
• Marconi invented the wireless telegraph in 1896.
• By encoding alphanumeric characters in analog signals, he sent telegraphic
signals across the Atlantic Ocean.
• This led to a great many developments in wireless communication networks
that support radio, television, mobile telephone, and satellite systems that
have changed our lives.
History : The First Systems
• Unidirectional information transmission
• was done for entertainment broadcasting. By the late 1930s,
• the need for bidirectional mobile communications emerged.
• Military ,police departments ,fire station….
• Many sophisticated military radio systems were
developed during and after WW2
History :The First Systems…
• 1946, the first mobile telephone system
History :The First Systems…
• To this day, this principle forms the basis for the majority of wireless
communications
• In 1957, the Soviet Union launched the first satellite (Sputnik) and the
U.S.A. soon followed.
Cellular principle
• The cellular principle, where the geographical area is divided into
cells;

BASE
STATION
>>>
• When you call to some one, your voice goes to your phone
microphone in the form of analog signal. The microphone converts
analog signal to digital signal (0 and 1). The antenna inside the phone
receives the digital signal (0s and 1s)and convert to electromagnetic
wave and sent it to the receiver.
• The electromagnetic wave is incapable of traveling long distances. The
electromagnetic signal gets weak in short distance. The
electromagnetic waves can be affected by obstacles. In nature the
globe is curved structure.
>>>
To overcome this problem:
1. The entire geographical area should be divided int to cell in
symmetric shape.
• in terms of including all users into cells, hexagonal
Shape is preferable.

2. Provide cell tower to each cell.

>>>
• In cellular technology, the geographical area is divided into hexagonal
cells(not circle, rectangle, …..)cells with each cell having its own tower. All
the available towers in different cells are connected each other with
wire(most specifically fiber optic cable wire ). This fiber optic cable is laid
under the ground/ocean to provide national and international connectivity.
• The electromagnetic wave from the caller phone is received by the tower
and converted to high frequency light pulses.
• These light pulses are carried to the base transceiver
box for farther signal processing.
• After the base transceiver processes the signal, it sends
the voice signal towards the destinations tower.
• Upon receiving the pulses, the destination tower
radiates it outwards in the form of electromagnetic
wave, and the receiver gets the signal. The wave in the receiver phone goes
>>>
• It is true that the mobile communication is not entirely wireless, they
do use the wired medium too.
• Mobile communication is only successful if your tower transfers the
signal to your friends(receiver’s) tower (if the caller and the receiver
locate on different cell). But, how your cell tower knows from which
cell tower your friend(receiver) is located??.
• Each cell tower gets information from mobile switching center(MSC).
• MSC is the central point of group of cell towers.
• When you purchase a SIM card, all the subscription information is
registered in a specified MSC. This MSC is your home MSC. It contains
information about you(location activity, ….).
>>>
• But How MSC knows your information ?
GSM(Global System for Mobile Communications)
• is a standard developed by the European
Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI).
GSM Architecture contains:
Mobile Station (MS):
 Mobile station is a combination of Mobile equipment (the phone), subscriber
identity module (SIM) and software.
 The mobile equipment can be uniquely identified by IMEI(International Mobile
Equipment Identity) number(*#06#)
Base Transceiver station (BTS):
 Contains Transceiver and Performs two operations (transmitting and receiving ).
 Every tower has base station transceiver.
 Facilitates wireless communication between mobile station and network
Base station controller (BSC):
 Can have multiple base transceiver station(BTS)
 Controls one /more base transceiver stations
>>>
Mobile switching center(MSC):
 The heart of mobile communication
 Responsible with call-setup, call recording, call
release….
 MSC contains :
1. visitor location register(VLR)
A database which contains the exact location of all subscribers currently present
the service area of the MSC.
When you move from one location to an other location, your entry is marked in this
database
2. Home location register(HLR)
A database containing the subscriber data when authorized to use the GSM
network.

 >>

3. Operation maintenance center(OMC):

Monitor and maintain the performance of mobile station(MS), base station
controller(BSC) and mobile switching center (MSC).
4. Authentication center (AuC):
 Authenticates the mobile subscriber who want to connect to network.
5.Equiment identity register(EIR):
 A database that record all equipment information that are allowed or banned
Types of Services
• Broadcast
• The first wireless service was broadcast radio.
• Properties
• information is only sent in one direction
• transmitted information is the same for all users.
• information is transmitted continuously.
• Simple
• Transmitter does not need to have any knowledge or consideration about the receivers
• Simplex
• No. of users does not matter
>>>
• Paging
• unidirectional wireless communications systems.
• used by..doctors , police allowing them to react to emergencies in shorter
time.
 >>>
• Cellular Telephony
• most important form of wireless communications.
• Properties
• information flow is bidirectional.(full duplex)
 >>>
Ad hoc Networks and Sensor Networks
• Equal level mobile device connected together over network.
• Each node acts as both master and slave.
• No special (master) computer among the network.
• The network is spontaneous(Each node can join and leave the network whenever
needed.)
• Example: interconnected security camera

Satellite Systems
 >>>

Andriod

The iphone
Mobile Computing
•

Goolge glass Portable projectors

The iPad
 What is computing?

• performing computations/operations.
OR
• the activity of using computer hardware and software for some
purpose.

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 Computing Paradigms…
Personal computing system
– refers to the use of personal computers
for Computation.
Characterized by
• Local software installation,
• Local system maintenance
• Customizable to user needs
• Very low utilization

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 Computing Paradigms…
Distributed computing :
• refers to the use of distributed systems to solve computational problems.
Distributed system
• consists of multiple autonomous computers that communicate through
a computer network.
• it appears to its users as a single coherent system.
• Google has more than 1.5 million servers across the globe
Distributed systems are characterized by:
remote information access (Message passing )
High availability (replication , ...)
fault tolerance
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 Mobile Computing
• Using small size portable (hand-held) computers, and other small
wearable devices, to run stand-alone applications (or access
remote applications) via wireless networks.
Three basic components
 Networks:
 Devices and
 software/applications
Mobile Devices

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 Mobile devices
• A mobile device (a.k.a. handheld device, handheld computer) is a
pocket-sized computing device, typically having a display screen with
touch input or a miniature keyboard.

• Due to the rapid advancement of the technology its hard to make a

specific classifications of mobile devices.
• Laptop
• Cell phones /Smartphones
• Tablet PC …etc

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What are the Functionalities of
Smart phones?

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 Mobile devices…
Tablet PC
• portable personal computer equipped with a touch
screen as a primary input device and designed to
be operated and owned by an individual.
• use virtual keyboards and handwriting
recognition for text input through the touchscreen.
• Tablet PCs also can be connected to a full-size
keyboard and monitor

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 >>>
• Two main types of tablet PCs:
• Convertible -look a lot like normal laptops except the screen
can be rotated all the way around and laid down flat across the
Keyboard.
• Slate- looks like a flat screen without a keyboard

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 Tablet PC…
• advantage
• Great mobility
• digital ink
• record your handwriting and drawings

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 Mobile devices…
• E-book reader
• portable electronic device that
is designed primarily for the purpose
of reading digital books and publication.
Support
- Text to Speech
- Internet Capabilities( Wi-Fi ,3G)

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 Types of Mobile OS

• Palm OS- mobile operating system initially developed by

Palm
• webOS – Mobile operating system from HP/Palm
• Bada - Mobile operating system developed by Samsung
Electronics
• MeeGo OS – from Nokia and Intel (open source, GPL)

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 Device limitation
• Device limitation
• Power
• Storage
• CPU
• user interface

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Mobile Software Development
• Challenges
• Different Operating Systems.
• Different Screen Size.
• are a challenge even on the same OS
• Different Input methods.
• Keyboard (Keypad – Keyboard – Soft Keyboard),
• TrackBall/Joystick, Pen (Handwriting), Touch,
• Microphone (Voice Command), Camera (Image
Recognition), etc

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 >>>
• Different Hardware Architectures.
• Language support
• Security

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 a s i c W i re l e s s N e t wo r k
B
Principles
 Wireless Transmission

• Wireless Communication systems consist of:

• transmitters
• Antennas: radiates electromagnetic energy into air
• Receivers
• In some cases, transmitters and receivers are on same device, called
transceivers (e.g., cellular phones)
 Signal
• Signals are the physical representation of data.
• Users of a communication system can only exchange data
through the transmission of signals.
• Light ,electric , electromagnetic/radio
• Layer 1 of the OSI basic reference model is responsible for
the conversion of data,
• i.e. bits, into signals and vice versa.
 Wireless Frequency allocation
Satellite Microwave (1GHz to 20 GHz, typically)
• Television distribution (e.g., Dstv uses satellites )
• Long-distance telephone
 >>>
Broadcast Radio (30 MHz to 1GHz)
• Description of broadcast radio antennas
• Omnidirectional
• Used in TV and radio.

Infrared (300 GHz to 3000 GHz)

• operate in the terribly high frequency (THF)
• does not penetrate walls
• used in remote control devices (TV remote control, garage door openers )
 Wireless Transmission impairment
• Strength of signal falls off with distance over transmission medium
• Attenuation
• Noise
• Atmospheric absorption
• Multipath
 >>>
• Strength of signal falls off with distance over transmission medium
• Attenuation factors for unguided media:
• Received signal must have sufficient strength so that circuitry in
the receiver can interpret the signal
• Signal must maintain a level sufficiently higher than noise to be
received without error
• Attenuation is greater at higher frequencies, causing distortion
• Approach: amplifiers that strengthen higher frequencies
 >>>
Noise (categories ):-
• Thermal Noise/Impulse Noise
• Crosstalk
 Satellite system
 Satellite is any object revolving around the earth.

 2types of Satellite (Natural and artificial)

Artificial Satellites: Satellites that are made by peoples and launched in

to orbits using rocket
 History Satellite system
• Soviet Sputnik 1, launched in 1957.
• The first artificial satellite
• SPUTNIK is not at all comparable to a satellite today; it was basically a small sender.
• SCORE in 1958
• The first American satellite to relay communications
• used a tape recorder to store and forward voice messages.
• It was used to send a Christmas greeting to the world from U.S. President.
• ECHO, in 1960
• the first reflecting communication satellite.
 History Satellite system
• SYNCOM , in 1963
• the first geostationary (or geosynchronous) satellite
followed.
• rotation is synchronous to the rotation of the earth, so
they appear to be pinned to a certain location
• MARISAT
• worldwide maritime communication
• large antennas on the ships
• INMARSAT-A
• mobile satellite telephone system
 History Satellite system
Advantage of satellite
• The advantages of satellite communication over terrestrial communication
are:
 The coverage area of a satellite greatly exceeds that of a terrestrial system.
 Satellite to Satellite communication is very precise.
 Higher Bandwidths are available for use.
• The disadvantages of satellite communication:
 Launching satellites into orbit is costly.
 >>>
Application
• Satellites are used in the following areas:
• Weather forecasting
• using image analysis
• Radio and TV broadcast satellites:
• e.g Digital Satellite Television (DSTV))
• Military satellites
• Spying …..safer from attack by enemies
• Satellites for navigation the global positioning system (GPS)
• Global telephone backbones
• it is being replaced by fiber optical cables crossing the oceans
• Because of the tremendous capacity of fiber optical links & much lower delay compared to
satellites.
 >>>
►A satellite is essentially a microwave repeater in the sky which receives signals from
transmitting stations on earth and relays these signals back to the receiving stations on the
earth or another satellite
• uplink : transmission from the earth to the satellite
• downlink : from the satellite to the earth.
• orbit: the path in which a satellite travels around the earth.
• footprint: the area that the signal from a satellite is aimed at (the signal
power is maximum at the center of the footprint and decreases as we move
away from it)
• Earth Stations – antenna systems on or near earth
• period: is the time required for a satellite to make a complete trip around the earth.
 Types of satellite orbits

By Altitude : there are 3 types of orbits .

1. Low Earth orbit (LEO) :

 160-2000KM,
 120 minutes to orbit the earth

2. Medium Earth orbit (MEO):

 2000-35786KM
 6 Hrs

3. Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO):

 35786 KM,
 24 hrs
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 Types of satellite orbits

By Shape : there are 2 types of orbits .

1. Circular orbit :

2. Eliptical orbit (MEO):

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 MANET
• MANET stands for .Mobile Adhoc NETwork

• A collection of wireless mobile nodes forming temporary network

• No centralized control

• Each node acts as both

a host and a router

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 X-STICS OF MANET
• A single node acts as both router and host
• Distributed nature
• Dynamic nature
• Less memory, power and light weight nodes

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 Sensor
• Ambient Light Sensor:
• adjusts the display brightness
• Proximity Sensor
• detects how close screen of the phone is to your body .display turns off in
order to save battery
• Accelerometer, Gyroscope
• detect the orientation of the device and adapts the content to suit the
new orientation

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 Proximity Sensor

• • A proximity sensor detects

the presence of nearby
objects without physical
contact

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 Sensor Network

• Sensor

• Sensor node

• Sensor network

• Wireless sensor network

distributed, autonomous sensor nodes to monitor environmental
conditions such as temperature, humidity, pressure, wind direction and
speed, etc.
A collection of sensing devices communicating wirelessly.
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Sensor Node Architecture

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 Application of SNW

• Industrial automation
• Automated and smart homes
• Monitoring of weather conditions
• …..etc

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 Challenges of SNW

• Life time
• Dynamic
• Prone to failure
• Limited capacity

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 Types of Sensor Network

1.Terrestrial WSNs
2.Underground WSNs
3.Underwater WSNs
4.Multimedia WSNs
5.Mobile WSNs

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 Cont……

1.Terrestrial WSNs
Capable of communicating base stations efficiently.

Limited Battery power, but equipped with solar cells as a secondary

source of energy.
It can be unstructured (ad hoc) or structured:
Unstructured(ad hoc): WSNs randomly distributed.

Structured : WSNs preplanned
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 Cont……

2. Underground WSNs- to monitor under ground Conditions

 More expensive than the terrestrial WSNs in terms of :

 deployment,

 maintenance,

 equipment cost considerations and

 careful planning.

 Additional sink nodes are located above the ground to relay information from the sensor nodes to the base station

 Difficult to recharge;

 Environmental Challenge of wireless communication

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 Cont……
3. Under Water WSNs
contains autonomous underwater vehicles + many sensor nodes.

autonomous underwater vehicles used for gathering data from the sensor nodes.

Challenges

 long propagation delay

 Band width and sensor failure

 Limited battery w/c can’t be recharged or replaced.

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 Cont……

.
5. Mobile WSNs
 Movable WSNs (Versatile)=>better coverage .

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 Node clustering
 Node clustering is a process of organizing wireless sensor nodes in manageable
format.
• Sensor Node: A sensor node is the core component of a WSN. Sensor
nodes can take on multiple roles in a network, such as simple sensing; data
storage; routing;
and data processing.
• Clusters: Clusters are the organizational unit for WSNs. The dense nature
of these networks require the need for them to be broken down into
clusters to simplify tasks
such a communication.
• Clusterheads: Clusterheads are the organization leader of a cluster. They
often are required to organize activities in the cluster. These tasks include
but are not limited
to data-aggregation and organizating the communication schedule 68of a
Node clustering

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 Data aggregation

What is aggregation ?

What is data aggregation?

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 Limitation of WSNs

 Little storage capacity – a few hundred kilobytes

 Less processing power-8MHz
 short communication range – consumes a lot of power
 Have batteries with a finite lifetime

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 Remote sensing

Remote Sensing
• collection and interpretation of information about an object, area,
or event without being in contact with the object.
 Aircraft and satellites are the common platforms for remote
sensing of the earth and its natural resources.

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Classification of Remote sensing
Active Remote sensor

 Active sensors have their own source of energy, a radar gun.

 These sensors send out a signal and measure the amount reflected

back.

 Active sensors are more controlled because they do not depend upon

varying illumination conditions.

Passive sensors

• depend on an external source of energy, usually the sun.

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 Intelligent network(IN)
• One key issue in network management and maintenance :
Difficult to locate network problems,
Slow fixing service,
higher repair costs,
customers dissatisfaction.
• IN technology consists of remotely manageable and automatically
adjustable nodes + management software.
• IN devices can be used to find out where the disturbances enter the
network.
• IN provides operators an effective way to solve these problems.
WHY CHOOSE THE INTELLIGENT NETWORKS TECHNOLOGY?

Improving customer satisfaction

•Intelligent network is used for Network reliability.
•The intelligent devices feature in the Intelligent Network allows an
ingress-switching(deep diagnosing) functionality that allows
segregating(identifying) the failing network segments until fixed, thus
limiting the number of homes contaminated by the ingress.
Reducing broadband network power consumption
•Network components are power saving
WHY CHOOSE THE INTELLIGENT NETWORKS TECHNOLOGY?

Avoiding maintenance visits

• Because the intelligent network contains intelligent software and intelligent
device which allows the operator to know where exactly the network problem
happens.
 Examples of IN services
Tele voting
Tele voting is a unique service of voting the one among the available
candidate by sending a unique number for our choice.
Call screening
The practice of identifying the incoming calls and decide what action to
take(answer, decline) as well as blocking the number(if it feels uncomforted).
Toll free calls/Freephone
 there are phone numbers which are free of charges to call/use
known as toll free calls, this happens b/c of intelligent network.
Mass-calling service
This allows multiple calls to the same destination.
 Why IN?

• The need for a more flexible way of adding sophisticated services to

the existing network.
 Mobile phone features
• All mobile phones have a number of features in common, but
manufacturers also try to differentiate their own products by
implementing additional functions to make them more attractive to
consumers.
• This has led to great innovation in mobile phone development over the
past 20 years.
• The common components found on all phones are:
• A battery, providing the power source for the phone functions.
• An input mechanism to allow the user to interact with the phone.

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 >>>>

• The most common input mechanism -keypad,

but also touch screens.
• Basic mobile phone services – make calls and send text messages.

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 Subscriber identity module (SIM)

• A SIM is an integrated circuit that securely stores information.

• A SIM is embedded into a removable SIM card, which can be transferred
between different mobile devices.
SIM cards were first made the same size as a credit card (85.60 mm ×
53.98 mm × 0.76 mm).
The development of physically-smaller mobile devices prompted the
development of a smaller SIM card, the mini-SIM card.

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 Subscriber identity module (SIM)

Mini-SIM cards have the same thickness as full-size cards, but their length
and width are reduced to 25 mm × 15 mm.
A SIM card contains two passwords: a personal identification number
(PIN) for ordinary use and a personal unblocking code (PUK) for PIN
unlocking.

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 Subscriber identity module (SIM)

• Dual SIM phones are now made by mobile phone manufacturers,

which save the user from carrying around a separate phone for every
number.
• There are two types: the first allows one to switch between the SIMs,
whilst the second allows both SIMs to be active simultaneously.

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 Subscriber identity module (SIM)

SIM cards are available in four standard sizes;

• full-size(the 1st )
 the same size of a credit card (85.60 mm × 53.98 mm × 0.76 mm).
• mini-SIM
25 mm x 15 mm
• micro-SIM
15 mm × 12 mm.
• embedded SIM.

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 Radar(Radio Detection And Ranging )
• radar, electromagnetic sensor used for detecting,
locating, tracking, and recognizing objects of various
kinds at considerable distances.
• It operates by transmitting electromagnetic energy
toward objects, commonly referred to as targets, and
observing the echoes returned from them.
• The targets may be aircraft, ships, spacecraft,
automotive vehicles, and astronomical bodies, or even
birds, insects, and rain.

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 Wireless network security(WNS)

WNS
• A set of practices and tools used to protect network infrastructure
and the traffic that traverses it.

Authentication -- the process of determining users are who they

claim to be

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 Why authentication ?
Requiring users to provide and prove their identity.
 adds a layer of security between adversaries and sensitive data.
With authentication, it is possible to employ least privilege access
to limit what employees can see.

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 Authentication type

1. Password-based authentication
Also known as knowledge-based authentication,

Relies on a username and password or PIN.

The most common authentication method.

the easiest authentication type for adversaries to abuse.

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…..
2. Two-factor/multifactor authentication
• Requires users provide at least one additional authentication
factor beyond a password.
• Requires two or more factors.
• Additional factors can be any of the user authentication types in
this article or a one-time password sent to the user via text or
email.
• This authentication type strengthens the security of accounts
because attackers need more than just credentials for access.

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….
3. Biometric authentication
The process of authenticating the user by his/her biological
character.
Biometric identifiers are unique, making it more difficult to hack
accounts.
smoother and quicker because it doesn't require a user to recall a
secret or password.
 harder for attackers to spoof.

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….
Common types of biometric authentications:
• Fingerprint scanning verifies authentication based on a user's
fingerprints.
• Facial recognition uses the person's facial characteristics for
verification.
• Iris recognition scans the user's eye with infrared to compare
patterns against a saved profile.
• Behavioral biometrics uses how a person walks, types or
handles a device.

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 How does wireless security work?
 Encryption is one of the most important tools used to create a
secure network
 It works by using formulas known as algorithms to scramble
messages as they travel between wireless devices.
 Even if intercepted, these messages are incomprehensible to
unauthorized users without a decryption key.

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Firewall
A means of keeping security attack from outside LAN.
There are 2 types of firewalls:
Software firewall – usually found in windows os for a particular
computer/server.
Hardware firewall – a computer/dedicated equipment
- used by routers.

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