ECE 599-26/692-06 

Wireless Sensor Networks and Real-Time Computing

Fall 2007 (3 credit hours)

Course Objectives:
Wireless sensor networks (WSN) have become one of the hottest areas of research and are identified as one of the 10 emerging technologies that will change the world by the MIT Technology Review. A WSN consists of numerous spatially distributed devices that, in an autonomous way, form a wireless network and use embedded sensors to cooperatively monitor physical or environmental conditions, such as temperature, sound, vibration, pressure, motion or pollutants, at different locations. WSN can be used in many civilian applications including habitat monitoring, healthcare applications, home automation, and traffic control, as well as military applications such as battlefield surveillance and homeland security.

This course will give a systematic introduction to the principles and design approaches of WSN, including all aspects (see covered topics below).  We also plan to have slightly more discussion on real-time communication, data aggregation, and information processing. Students will study and critique state-of-the-art research papers, contribute to class discussions, and do a group project on a physical WSN testbed composed of more than 100 various wireless sensor modules.

Instructor:
Dr. Xiaorui (Ray) Wang
Office Hour: half hour after each class or by appointment, Ferris Hall 421
Phone: 974-0627.  Email: xwang at ece dot utk dot edu

Online Course Materials:

• Syllabus
• Course Schedule and Slides (Please check this page often)

Class Time and Location:
Tuesday and Thursday, 3:40PM - 4:55PM, Perkins Hall 324 

Textbooks and/or Other Required Material:
We mainly focus on state-of-the-art research papers, which you can find on the above course schedule page.
No textbook is required but the following one is recommended:
Feng Zhao and Leonidas Guibas, Wireless Sensor Networks, Morgan Kaufmann, 2004 

Tentative Grading Policy:
Homework (critique): 20%
Class presentation: 15%

Lab: 5%
Semester-long project: 55%
-    Proposal: 8%,
-    Midterm presentation: 12%
-    Final presentation & demo: 15%
-    Final report 20%
Participation: 5%

Prerequisites:
Graduate student standing, or ECE 455, or permission of the instructor 

Disability Statement:
Any student who feels s/he may need an accommodation based on the impact of a disability should contact the Office of Disability Services at 865-974-6087 in Hoskins Library to coordinate reasonable accommodations for students with documented disabilities.