Chapter: 01-Mobile Computing

Introduction to Mobile Computing

By: Asst. Prof. Intisar Al-Mejibli

 Course Evaluation

❑Assignment & Quizzes 10%

❑Mid 1 – 10%
❑Mid 2 – 10 %
❑Final Term – 70%
Objectives of Course

• What are the key mobile computing and wireless technologies and their
roles
• What are the concepts/terms (vocabulary), building blocks and their
interrelationships, Theoretical and conceptual foundations
• Introduce
• Introduction to Mobile computing Mobility Management
• Basics and Evolution of Modern wireless communication
• Mobile Ad Hoc Networks
• Security Issues in Mobile Computing
• Mobile Application
• Outcomes
• Adequate knowledge and Able to carry research in different domains of
Mobile Computing
Wireless Mobile or Mobile Wireless?

• Wireless communication systems is type of communication system.

• Dimensions of mobility:
The set of properties that distinguishes the mobile computing system
from stationary computing system
Wireless & Cellular Communication

• Transmitting voice, data, video and other services data using

electromagnetic waves in open space (atmosphere).

• Cellular communication:
• Wireless communication using unguided media, that is, radio and
microwave frequencies or satellites, has found widespread use in
mobile phones.
Mobile Network Architecture
The Radio spectrum
Wireless characteristics

• Variant Connectivity
• Low bandwidth and reliability
• Frequent disconnections
• predictable or sudden
• Asymmetric Communication
• Broadcast medium
• Monetarily expensive
• Charges per connection or per message/packet

➢Connectivity is weak, intermittent and expensive

Portable Information Devices

• personal digital assistant (PDAs), Personal

Communicators
• Light, small and durable to be easily carried around
• dumb terminals, palmtops, wristwatch PC/Phone,
• will run on AA+ /Ni-Cd/Li-Ion batteries
• may be diskless
• I/O devices: Mouse is out, Pen is in
• Wireless connection to information networks
• either infrared or cellular phone
• Specialized Hardware (for compression/encryption)
 Portability Characteristics

• Battery power restrictions

• transmit/receive, disk spinning, display, CPUs, memory
consume power
• Battery lifetime will see very small increase
• need energy efficient hardware (CPUs, memory) and system
software
• planned disconnections - doze mode

➢Power consumption vs. resource utilization

Portability Characteristics Cont.

• Resource constraints
• Mobile computers are resource poor
• Reduce program size
• Computation and communication load cannot be
distributed equally
• Small screen sizes

➢Asymmetry between static and mobile computers

Mobility Characteristics

• Location changes
•location management - cost to locate is added to
communication
• Heterogeneity in services
• bandwidth restrictions and variability
• Dynamic replication of data
•data and services follow users
• Querying data - location-based responses
• Security and authentication
➢System configuration is no longer static
What Needs to be Reexamined?

• Operating systems - TinyOS

• File systems - CODA
• Data-based systems – TinyDB
• Communication architecture and protocols
• Hardware and architecture
• Real-Time, multimedia, QoS
• Security
• Application requirements and design
• PDA design: Interfaces, Languages
 Mobility Constraints
• CPU
• Power
• Variable Bandwidth
• Delay tolerance, but unreliable
• Physical size
• Constraints on peripherals and GUIs
• Frequent Location changes
• Security
• Heterogeneity
• Expensive
• Frequent disconnections but predictable
Types of Wireless Communication

Radio
Celullar service
Wireless computer network
Wireless Telecommunications Networks

• Wireless Wide Area Network (WWAN) communication

bandwidths
• 1G
The first generation of wireless technology, which was
analog based
• 2G
The second generation of digital wireless technology;
accommodates voice and text
• 2.5G
An interim wireless technology that can accommodate
voice, text, and limited graphics
Wireless Telecommunications Networks
• 3G
The third generation of digital wireless technology; supports rich media
such as video
• 3.5G
This generation was inserted into the ranks of cell phone generations; it
refers to the packet-switched technologies used to achieve higher
transmission speeds
• 4G
offering speeds that are about 10 times faster than they are on 3G,
networks. Its higher data speeds could make smartphones much more
comparable to PCs, giving them better multimedia and gaming
capabilities.
• 5G
5G is exponentially faster download and upload speeds. Latency, or the
time it takes devices to communicate with wireless networks, will also
drastically decrease.
Wireless Telecommunications Networks

• WWAN communication protocols

• Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA)
• Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA)
• Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA)
• WWAN network systems
• Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM)
An open, nonproprietary standard for mobile voice and
data communications
Introduction Mobile computing

• Introduction: Mobile computing is computing that allows continuous

access to remote resources, even to small computing devices such as
laptops, palmtops and other handheld devices like personal digital
assistants (PDAs) and digital cell phones.

• Goal of Mobile Computing: “People and their machines should be able to

access information and communicate with each other easily and securely,
in any medium or combination of media – voice, data, image, video, or
multimedia – any time, anywhere, in a timely, cost-effective way.”
Mobile computing Issues

• Basic issues of concern in physical mobility

• Weak connectivity
• Wireless connectivity
• Ubiquitous computing
• Mobile systems Technical issues for mobility
• Security
• Security infrastructure
• Reliability
• Naming and locating
 Classifying Mobile computing

• Mobility of physical devices can be viewed at three different levels .

• Macro-mobility: This is mobility through a global network. While
moving in such a network, it should be possible to communicate
without breaking the existing access. mobile IP, which is the protocol
that takes care of macro-mobility.
• Micro-mobility: This is mobility of a device in one single
administrative domain of the global network. For cellular networks, this
is the lowest level of mobility. Cellular IP is the protocol designed to
take care of micro-mobility.
• Ad hoc mobility: This is mobility within a mobile ad hoc network
(MANET), caused by device mobility constantly changing the network
topology.
Mobile computing classes
Mobile agents

• A mobile agent is a program that can move through a network

and autonomously execute tasks on behalf of the users.
• Mobile agents are used to great advantage in applications like
e-commerce, software distribution, information retrieval,
system administration, network management, etc.
Context-aware computing

• A context-aware computing system is one which has user,

device and application interfaces which enable it to remain
aware of various parameters like its surroundings,
circumstances or actions.
• The context of a mobile device represents the circumstances,
situations, applications or physical environment under which it
is being used. For example, the context is student when the
device is used to download faculty lectures.
• Context-aware computing leads to application-aware
computing and pervasive or ubiquitous computing.
 Context-aware computing

• The five types of context-aware:

• Physical context- The context can be that of the physical environment.

• Computing context- Computing context is defined by interrelationships and
conditions of the network connectivity protocol in use
• User context- The user context is defined as user location, user profiles, and
persons near the user.
• Temporal context Temporal context defines the interrelation between time
and the occurrence of an event or action.
• Structural context- It defines a sequence and structure formed by the
elements or records.
Mobile computing Devices

• Personal digital assistant/enterprise digital assistant

• Smartphone
• Tablet computer
• Ultra-Mobile PC
• Wearable computer
 Mobile computing Limitations
• Range & Bandwidth: Mobile Internet access is generally
slower than direct cable connections,
• Security standards: When working mobile, one is dependent
on public networks.
• Power consumption: rely entirely on battery power
• Transmission interferences: Weather, terrain, and the range
from the nearest signal point can all interfere with signal
reception.
• Potential health hazards: more likely to be involved in traffic
accidents.
• Human interface with device: Screens and keyboards tend to
be small, which may make them hard to use.
 Nomadic, Mobile & Ubiquitous

No Fixed Wireless Wireless

Fixed
Network Wireless Network Network
Network
Network (A) (B)
Nomadic Mobile Computing
Computing
Ubiquitous Computing

Ubiquitous computing (ubicomp) is a concept in software engineering and computer science where computing is
made to appear everywhere and anywhere.
What is Pervasive Computing?

 Pervasive computing is a term for the strongly emerging trend

toward:

 Numerous, casually accessible, often invisible computing

devices
 Frequently mobile or embedded in the environment
 Connected to an increasingly ubiquitous network structure.
Impressive Wireless Infrastructure!

Global

Satellite
Suburban
Urban
In-Building

Micro-Cell Pico-Cell
Macro-Cell
dik ©
In-Room
(BlueTooth)
 Mobile Applications

• Expected to create an entire new class of

Applications
• new massive markets in conjunction with the Web
• Mobile Information Appliances - combining personal
computing and consumer electronics
• Applications:
• Vertical: vehicle dispatching, tracking, point of sale
• Horizontal: mail enabled applications, filtered information
provision, collaborative computing…
General examples Of Mobile Computing
Applications

• Vehicles
• Emergencies
• Traveling Salesman
• Entertainment
• Education
• Location Dependent Services etc.
Dimensions of mobile computing

⚫ Location Awareness
⚫ Network Connectivity Quality of Service
⚫ Limited device capabilities
⚫ Limited power supply
⚫ Support for a wide variety of UI
⚫ Platform proliferation
⚫ Active transaction
Mobile Development Frameworks and Tools

Fully Centralized
• Have custom-designed clients
• Embedded in nature
• Designed to do only one thing
• Examples: Call centers, Battlefield systems, Grocery store

N-Tier Client-Server
• Any Number of Tiers – No Limits
• 3-Tier: Client (User Agent), Application Server, Database
• Problems: Code portability, Mobility
• Needs: Layer of Software, Performance and system requirements
Client-server architecture
The N-Tier application (cont'd)

• 3-tier application
The N-Tier application (cont'd)

• Multi-tier application
Selection of the Frameworks and Tools

• Thin-Client Wireless Client-Server

Browser that loads markup code (Web-model)
Each platform have homogenous browser specification in a client-
server environment
No concern about environment
Server-side structure
WAP and WML are used
• Stand-alone Applications
• They do not need networking components
• Needs of synchronization with some external system
periodically
 Selection of the Frameworks and Tools

• Thick-Client Wireless Client-Server

 In the client side, there's a custom application that communicate with the server
 Using the client as a means of storing data
for the offline business logic performs
 Does not need to be centralized
 Having thick clients is more difficult
 The platforms :
• Provide by OS or a VM's, ex: J2ME
• Hardware manufacture, ex: Qualcomm Brew
Selection of the Frameworks and Tools

Restricted resources: (Screen, Keyboard)

Deployment and provision problem
• Operating system or virtual machine
• Programming environment

• Examples:
• Operating system (Windows CE, Symbian)
• Virtual Machine J2ME
• android-studio
 Summary
• Mobile applications is a tremendous area of growth
• Business drivers such as M-Business are significant
• Mobile computing platforms have to handle special cases:
• Slow line speeds (19.2 Kbps)
• Congestions are usual
• More error prone
• Different types of wireless networks
• Cellular
• Wireless LANs
• Satellites
• Many emerging areas: sensor networks, Mobile Adhoc Networks, Free Space Optics
• Many issues in Architectures, security and management
• Standards work is also progressing in many areas