Mobile

Computing

Oct 23, 2013 1

 History of mobile computing?
By 2012 the number of mobile subscribers throughout the
world will reach 5 Billion, of which close to 1.5 Billion will use
wireless communicators (3G) as gateways to the Internet

Oct 23, 2013 2

World wide Internet penetration rate increases rapidly.
25% of the world population access to the Internet
by 2012, >1 billion of Internet users will use mobile as their only accessmeans

Oct 23, 2013 3

 What is mobile computing?
 Today,access to information and computing services is
necessary everywhere
◦ not only from our "home base," but also while we are traveling
and when we reach a different location.
 Mobile computing
◦ Techniques that allow mobile users to use portable computing
devices to run stand-alone applications and / or to access
remote ones via wireless networks.

Oct 23, 2013 4

 Mobile computing = mobile + computing, another wave
in computing evolution.
◦ Different kinds of mobility
 Terminal mobility: movement of processors / devices - caused by mobile
devices.
 User mobility: movement of users – caused by traveling people.
 Logical mobility: movement of processes - caused by mobile codes.
◦ Different modes of computing
 Small office: take the service/application with users - computing is offline
 Home office: maintain the access to the same service/application at
different places – computing is online
 Mobile office: move to different places and the service/application follows
– computing is moving (follow-me)

Oct 23, 2013 5

 Evolution of computing paradigm
Personal Mobile
Mainframe Client/Server Computer Internet
Internet
Fixed Mobile
Location Branch Office Remote
Office Workplace

Age of Age of Age of Age of Age of

Centralized Distributed Personal Networked Mobile
Computing Computing Computing Computing Computing

1960 1980 1990 2000 2003

2010
Unwired
Enterprise
Oct 23, 2013 6
 Synonym of mobile computing
 Mobile computing often uses wireless and mobile
networks as access technologies.
◦ Wireless and mobile networks extend networking
capacity to cover the areas of lack of wired link and
support movement of devices
Wireless communication plays an important
role in mobile computing. But, mobile
computing does not necessarily mean wireless.

Oct 23, 2013 7

 Today’s applications
 Internet,Wireless Networks & Mobile Computing
◦ Mobile users use wireless communications to access to the Web information and
services

Provider
Network

WAP Terminal

SQL

WAP Gateway Products

Merchant 1

Internet

- WML pages
SQL
- list of merchants

WAP / Agent Server

SQL

Products
Merchant n
 Corporation
◦ M-business / M-office (working remotely - job dispatch, calendar, email,workflow,
s etc)
◦ M-commerce (logistics, inventory control)
 Consumer
◦ M-commerce (shopping,banking,payment,etc)
s ◦ Mobile web access / mobile email / SMS
◦ Mobile P2P (file sharing, gaming,etc.)
 Government / Public services / Militaries
◦ M-healthcare (emergency with in-time patient condition info.)
◦ Transportation
◦ Tourism (navigation with maps, location-aware travel hints,etc)
◦ Intelligent home
◦ Environment monitoring
◦ Battle field communications

Oct 23, 2013 9

 Enabling factors
 Motivations and driving forces
◦ Increasing demands on access to information,
communication, and cooperation anywhere,anytime,
anyway.
◦ Technology reality may support such demands
 Increasing availability of wireless networks at reduced cost.
 Widespread use of handheld devices with increasing
computing power and lower cost.
 Integration of communication and computing devices (PDA, i-
Phone, smart phone,intelligent sensor).
 Advances in techniques of detecting location of a device –
location based services.

Oct 23, 2013 10

 Device Vision
 Mobile phones
◦ 1973: First cellphone call
◦ 2007: ~ 3.3 billion mobile phone subscribers
◦ 2009: ~ 4.6 billion

 Smar t phones
◦ are mobile phones
◦ have operation systems
◦ can connect to the internet:web browsing,email,etc
◦ have advanced computing ability: send and receive text &
multimedia messages (SMS,MMS),take pictures,etc
 Mobile computing means more…
 Mobile computing is also closely related to Internet
computing technologies
◦ Mobile computing uses Internet computing technologies
 The layered protocol stack and client/server paradigm
◦ Mobile computing allows the application not to connect the
network all the time
 Mobile Internet,Wireless Internet
 HTTP client / server protocols =>WAP
 XML,HTML =>WML,XHTML
 J2SE/J2EE, .Net => J2ME/J2EE, .NetMobile

Oct 23, 2013 12

 Forthcoming applications
Example: Vehicle Networks
transmission of news, road
condition, traffic information,
weather, music via DAB
personal communication using
mobile phone networks
positioning via GPS UMTS, WLAN,
GSM,
local ad-hoc network with cdma2000,
vehicles close-by to prevent DAB, ...
accidents, report traffic jams,
guidance system, etc
vehicle data (e.g., from busses,
high-speed trains) can be
transmitted in advance for
maintenance Personal Travel Assistant,
busses, trucks, and trains can DAB, PDA, laptop,
GSM, UMTS, WLAN,
transmit logistic information for, Bluetooth, ...
e.g., fleet management.
What’s the future picture?

Oct 23, 2013 14

Wireless: Convergence

Oct 23, 2013 15

 Challenges of mobile computing
 Where do the challenges come from?
◦ Distinct characteristics of mobile and wireless
computing:
 Wireless communications
 Mobility
 Portability

Oct 23, 2013 16

 Challenges
 Wired channel
◦ Wired channel can be easily engineered
 Too many noises? – use shell to protect against electromagnetic noise
 Large signal attenuation? - use repeaters to amplify the signal
 Data rate too low? - upgrade to coaxial cable or optical fiber
 Low error rate - Good quality: 10-6; Optical fiber: 10-11~ 10-12
 Wireless channel
◦ Wireless channel is hardly be engineered
 High background noises
 Signal strength fluctuates significantly
 Low data rate
 High error rate – Radio: 10-2 or worse

Oct 23, 2013 17

 Challenges
 Wired channel – what if more than one
transmitter?
Every user accesses
the network by
means of a
Switching dedicated channel
Center Dedicated
Channel New user is
or
served by a new
Network wired-line circuit
Access Point
Access capacity is
guaranteed.

Oct 23, 2013 18

 Challenges
 Wireless channel – what happens?

Wireless users access

the network by means
of a shared channel

Access capacity is
Base inherently limited.
Station

Oct 23, 2013 19

 Mobility
 Different modes of mobility
◦ Personal mobility : reaching a mobile user using a logical identity,
irrespective of what device he/she is using, current location in
the network, or even which network he/she is located in
◦ Session mobility : maintaining access to the same network
service / application at different places
◦ Service / application mobility : making a service/application available
to mobile user when the user has moved to another location
with other but similar resources (e.g., print using the nearest
printer) – following me service

Oct 23, 2013 20

 Challenges
 Dynamic change of physical locations
◦ Mobile users may use their phones at different
places
 Dynamic change of logical addresses
◦ Users may use their laptops to access different
networks
 Frequent change of system configuration
◦ Mobile users may use PDAs with cellular networks
when outdoor and with WLANs when indoor.

Oct 23, 2013 21

 Challenges
 Location dependency
◦ Location management problem: How does the network
know where the intended recipient of a message is currently
located?
 Cellular scenario

Where is 97532468?

Send broadcast
messages from
every base station.
 Portability

•Minimize power consumption - larger battery life,

smaller battery size - lesser weight

•Smaller user interface - handwriting, voice

recognition, pens, virtual reality screens.

• Small storage capacity - Compressed file systems

 Topics in mobile computing
 Mobile computing models
◦ Mobile C/S Models
 Simple C/S model,
 Client/Agent/Server model,
 Client/Intercept/Server model
◦ Mobile Peer-to-Peer Model
 Mobile hosts plays the same role and cooperate to
 Discover peers and resources
 Route query requests
 Perform specified tasks
◦ Mobile Agent Model
 Code mobility (with computation, data,and state)
 Autonomous andAsynchronous

Oct 23, 2013 24

 Topics in mobile computing
 Mobile C/S model
◦ C/S model can still be used in mobile environment - mobile
hosts act as the clients requesting service from server located
at fixed network.
◦ However, mobile C/S model deviates from the C/S model used
for distributed system in several ways.
◦ Mobile C/S model cannot assume continuous network
connectivity and powerful client ability
 RPC (Remote process control) is not suitable due to disconnection;
Direct message exchange is not good neither due to weak connectivity
and slow network.
 Need to decouple the communication in synchronous RPC;Use
indirection with messages queued at the two ends.
 Topics in mobile computing
 Mobile P2P model
◦ No central server, actually no difference
between client and server:
 All nodes have the same role, serving as both
server and client
 Relying on collaboration
◦ Completely decentralized & asynchronous
operations
◦ Nodes can communicate with each other
directly

Oct 23, 2013 26

 Topics in mobile computing
 Mobile agent (MA) model
◦ A MA is a “process on the move” – dispatched by one host,
encapsulating a thread of execution along with a package of
code, data,and execution state
 Executes at a host for a while, halts execution, dispatches itself to another host,
and resumes execution there - all under its own control
logi logi
logi c c
c
mobile agent
MigratiXng
mobile agent X
mobile agent X

Host A Host B
Oct 23, 2013 27
 Topics in mobile computing
 Mobile agent features
◦ Mobility
 Actively travels across the network, carrying partial / intermediate results
calculated at the previous host
 Not just alternative to message passing; can perform additional tasks along
its way of traveling
◦ Autonomous
 Decides by itself what to do and how, when and where it ought to move

◦ Asynchrony
 Mobile agents and users can execute at the same time without blocking
each other

Oct 23, 2013 28

 Summary
 Mobile computing systems have different
constraints and hence different solutions.Main
challenges are due to
 Wireless - unreliable.
 Mobility - dynamism of information.
 Portability - limited resources
 Resource list for further information on mobile
computing.

Oct 23, 2013 29

THANK YOU

10/23/13 30