Wireless Communication and Mobile Computing

Off-the-shelf Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) and low-cost microcontrollers provide the foundation for networking using the visible light as communication medium. These networks require fast and stable synchronization and a distributed protocol to handle shared medium access. We present and evaluate a physical layer and a distributed, contention-based medium access control protocol that enables reliable communication over room range distances; both are implemented in software using low-cost commercial off-the-shelf building blocks.

In this paper, we propose a novel method to compress video content based on image retargeting. First, a saliency map is extracted from the video frames either automatically or according to user input.

Wireless communication offers access to information even to users living in areas where little to no access to affordable communication channels is available. Delay Tolerant Networks (DTNs) enable content distribution in such areas, using mobility of devices and avoiding the need for traditional network infrastructure. In DTNs, data is passed from mobile device to mobile device, whenever possible, in an intelligent way.

Mobile technology is already playing an important role in the economic and social empowerment of rural communities in developing regions. However, rural areas often suffer from slow and unreliable network infrastructures. This limits access to content and services that may promote economic development. Focusing on under-served areas in rural developing regions, we aim to explore how ICT systems for collective intelligence can be used to foster economic and social empowerment of rural communities.

Communication with light enables a true “Internet of Everything.”

In this work, we present a station identity management system that enables preserving femtocell base stations location privacy.

The Future Internet of Things (IoT) will connect billions of battery-powered radio-enabled devices. Some of them may need to communicate with each other and with Internet gateways (border routers) over multi-hop links.

We believe that the existing 802.11 standards can be optimized (especially in terms of energy-efficiency) to make Wi-Fi suitable for a wide range of IoT applications.