Locations and Hours:

Tuesday and Thursday, 9:35am-10:50am @ Room 105B Zach

Instructor:

Prof. Anxiao (Andrew) Jiang, 427B H. R. Bright Building. Email: ajiang@cs.tamu.edu
Office hours: Tuesday and Thursday, 10:50am - 11:20am.

Course Description:

This course is on the recent progress in wireless sensor networks, one of the fast developing areas in computer science and engineering. Networked sensor systems of large scale are becoming available in the foreseeable future and provide economical and practical solutions for ubiquitous data collection, processing and networking. It has the potential to revolutionize the way we observe, interact with and influence the physical world.

This course covers comprehensive aspects of information processing in sensor networks, with a focus on understanding the main research directions and their theoretical backgrounds. Topics include data collection, distributed information storage, file systems and efficient data structures, information aggregation, information retrieval, data security, sensor web, and other network/telecommunication topics. Students are expected to learn cutting-edge technologies and explore novel ideas. Prerequisites include graduate standing, basic knowledge on algorithms and networking systems.

Course Materials:

Materials include handouts distributed in class, and technical papers. Recommended books for reading are (1) Wireless Sensor Networks: An Information Processing Approach by F. Zhao and L. Guibas, Elsevier/Morgan-Kaufmann, 2004; (2) Networking Wireless Sensors by Bhaskar Krishnamachari, Cambridge University Press, 2005. 

Grading and Requirements:

Grading is based on homework (20%), presentation of papers in class (35%), a final  project (35%), and class performance and culture (10%). There  are no exams.

 Requirements for Final Project 

Note: The final project is due on Tuesday, April 29 in class.

Homework:

1. Homework Assignment One (Due Sunday, 02/10/2008, 11:59pm by email): Order the following 6 papers (for presentation) based on your preference.

2. Homework Assignment Two (Due Thursday, 02/21/2008, 11:59pm by email): Order the following 6 papers (for presentation) based on your preference.

3. Homework Assignment Three (Due Thursday, 03/06/2008, 11:59pm by email): Order the following 6 papers (for presentation) based on your preference:

4. Homework Assignment Four (Due Thursday, 03/20/2008, 11:59pm by email): Order the following 6 papers (for presentation) based on your preference:

5. Homework Assignment Five (Due Thursday, 04/10/2008, 11:59pm by email): Order the following 6 papers (for presentation) based on your preference:

    (1) Data Persistence in Large-scale Sensor Networks with Decentralized Fountain Codes.   Presenter: Yue Wang

    (2) EnviroStore: A Cooperative Storage System for Disconnected Operation in Sensor Networks.    Presenter: Manish Singh

    (3) Information Survival Threshold in Sensor and P2P Networks.    Presenter: Hao Li

    (4) Harbor: Software-based Memory Protection for Sensor Nodes.    Presenter: Mark Learn

    (5) PDA: Privacy-preserving Data Aggregation in Wireless Sensor Networks.    Presenter: Brad Sattem

    (6) In-Network Execution of Monitoring Queries in Sensor Networks.    Presenter: Julien Jainsky

 

Syllabus:
 

Date	Lectures	Reading
01/15/2008 Tuesday	Introduction.
01/17/2008 Thursday	Sensor web.
01/22/2008 Tuesday	In-network data storage.	[Paper: Dimakis et al.]
01/24/2008 Thursday	Data storage.
01/29/2008 Tuesday	Data transmission.
01/31/2008 Thursday	Data transmission.
02/05/2008 Tuesday	Introduction to flash memories.	[Paper: Jiang et al.]
02/07/2008 Thursday	Flash file systems.
02/12/2008 Tuesday	Flash file systems for sensors.	[Paperr: ELF]
02/14/2008 Thursday	Joint storage in flash memories.
02/19/2008 Tuesday	Presentations: (1) TinyDB: an acquisitional query processing system for sensor networks.   Presenter: Yue Wang;  (2) DIFS: A distributed index for features in sensor networks. Presenter: Manish Kumar Singh
02/21/2008 Thursday	Presentations: (3) Synopsis Diffusion for Robust Aggregation in Sensor Networks.  Presenter: Hao Li;  (4) Directed diffusion: A scalable and robust communication paradigm for sensor networks. Presenter: Mark Learn
02/26/2008 Tuesday	Presentations: (5) TinySec: a link layer security architecture for wireless sensor networks.  Presenter: Bradley Sattem; (6) Modelling data-centric routing in wireless sensor networks.  Presenter: Julien Jainsky
02/28/2008 Thursday	Presentations: (1) A Compact, High-speed, Wearable Sensor Network for Biomotion Capture and Interactive Media  Presenter: Yue Wang; (2) Outlier Detection in Sensor Networks  Presenter: Manish Singh
03/04/2008 Tuesday	Presentations: (3) Separating the Wheat from the Chaff: Practical Anomaly Detection Schemes in Ecological Applications of Distributed Sensor Networks  Presenter: Hao Li; (4) Lucid Dreaming: Reliable Analog Event Detection for Energy-constrained Applications  Presenter: Mark Learn
03/06/2008 Thursday	Presentations: (5) A Framework for Automated Generation and Instantiation of Power-Efficient Classifiers For Embedded Sensor Nodes  Presenter: Brad Sattem; (5) Active Sensing Platform for Wireless Structural Health Monitoring  Presenter: Julien Jainsky.
03/18/2008 Tuesday	Presentations: (1) Time-decaying sketches for sensor data aggregation   Presenter: Yue Wang;  (2) Approximate Isocontures and Spatial Summaries for Sensor Networks   Presenter: Manish Singh
03/20/2008 Thursday	Presentations: (3) Que: A Sensor Network Rapid Prototyping Tool with Application Experience from A Data Center Deployment   Presenter: Hao Li; (4) Dozer: Ultra-low Power Data Gathering in Sensor Networks   Presenter: Mark Learn
03/25/2008 Tuesday	Presentations: (5) DALi: A Communication-Centric Data Abstraction Layer for Energy-Constrained Devices in Mobile Sensor Networks   Presenter: Brad Sattem; (6) Nearly Constant Approximation for Data Aggregation Scheduling in Wireless Sensor Networks   Presenter: Julien Jainsky
03/27/2008 Thursday	Presentations: (1) Improving Mobile Database Access Over Wide-Area Networks Without Degrading Consistency  Presenter: Yue Wang; (2) Hierarchical Spatial Gossip for Multi-resolution Representations in Sensor Networks  Presenter: Manish Singh
04/01/2008 Tuesday	Presentations: (3) Optimal Policies for Distributed Data Aggregation in Wireless Sensor Networks  Presenter: Hao Li; (4) Communication Through Silence in Wireless Sensor Networks  Presenter: Mark Learn
04/03/2008 Thursday	Presentations: (5) Foxtrot: Phase Space Data Representation for Correlation-aware Aggregation  Presenter: Brad Sattem; (6) Oblivious Routing with Mobile Fusion Centers over A Sensor Network  Presenter: Julien Jainsky
04/08/2008 Tuesday	Mid-term check of final projects. (10 minutes presentation for everyone.)
04/10/2008 Thursday	Two presentations by Manish Singh: DIFS: A distributed index for features in sensor networks and Approximate Isocontures and Spatial Summaries for Sensor Networks.
04/15/2008 Tuesday	This class is shifted to 3:30pm--4:45pm, Friday, 04/18/2008 in 427B H. R. Bright Building for project advising.
04/17/2008 Thursday	(1) Data Persistence in Large-scale Sensor Networks with Decentralized Fountain Codes.   Presenter: Yue Wang;   (2) EnviroStore: A Cooperative Storage System for Disconnected Operation in Sensor Networks.    Presenter: Manish Singh
04/22/2008 Tuesday	(3) Information Survival Threshold in Sensor and P2P Networks.    Presenter: Hao Li;    (4) Harbor: Software-based Memory Protection for Sensor Nodes.    Presenter: Mark Learn
04/24/2008 Thursday	(5) PDA: Privacy-preserving Data Aggregation in Wireless Sensor Networks.    Presenter: Brad Sattem;    (6) In-Network Execution of Monitoring Queries in Sensor Networks.    Presenter: Julien Jainsky
04/29/2008 Tuesday	No class.        Project paper due (by email or leave a hardcopy in my mailbox on 3rd floor, Bright Building).