MOBILE COMPUTING (UNIT 1)

Introduction
1. There are two kinds of mobility:-
a. User Mobility:-who has access to the similar telecommunication
services at different places, i.e., mobile and the services. Mechanism
for supporting user mobility is call forwarding solutions known from
the computer or telephone desktop supporting roaming.
b. Device portability: - with this the communication device moves (with
or without user). Example – mobile, where the system itself hands the
device from one radio transmitter.
2. In wireless device, the way of accessing a network is without a wire. The
wire is replaced by the transmission of electromagnetic waves through the
air.
3. Characteristics of a communication device:
a. Fixed and wired: desktop computer
b. Mobile and wired: Laptop
c. Fixed and wireless: used for installing networks, bridging
d. Mobile and wireless: no cable restriction , GSM
4. Wireless VS Mobile Example
No No Stationary Computer
No Yes Notebook in a hotel
Yes No Wireless lane in Buildings
Yes Yes Personal digital assistant
Application
1. Vehicle:
a. Transmission of news, road condition, music, news, and other
broadcast information via digital audio broadcasting (DAB) with 1.5
Mbit/s.
b. Personal communication using GSM with 384 Kbit/s.
c. Position via GPS
d. The network between cars and inside each car will more likely work
in ad-hoc fashion.
e. Vehicle data can be transmitted in advance for maintenance.
2. Emergencies:
a. Early transmission of patient data to hospital, current status , diagnosis
 b. Replacement of fixed infrastructure in case of earth quakes, hurricanes
3. Travelling Salesman:
a. Direct access to customer files stored in remote location
b. Consistent database for all agent to keep track of all activities of
employees
c. With wireless access, laptop turned into mobile office
4. Replacement of wired network:
a. wireless network can be used to replace wired networks, example :
remote sensors for tradeshow
b. It is impossible to wire remote sensors for weather forecast,
earthquake detection. Wireless connections via satellite can help in
this situation.
c. WLANs as a replacement of cabling
d. LANs in historical building
5. Information and more:
a. Help anyone to know about any location via GPS
b. Pay via electronic cash and send this info to service provider
c. Entertainment and games
d. Ad-hoc network for multi user game
e. Outdoor internet access
6. Location dependent services:
In many cases it is important for an application to know about the location or
the user might need local information. Several activities that might depend
on the actual location can be distinguished as –
a. Follow on services:- automatic call forwarding, transmission of
actual work space to the current location
b. Location aware services:- printer, fax, phone, server etc exist in local
environment
c. Privacy: - it provides info that who should gain knowledge about the
location.
d. Information services:-
i. pull – info from service –“Where is restaurant?”
ii. push – info on your service – “Current offer on supermarket”
e. Support services: - Intermediate results of calculations, state
information, or cache content could follow the mobile node through
the fixed network. This helps to reduce traffic within fixed network.
 7. Mobile and Wireless Devices:
a. Sensor:- transmitting state information
b. Embedded controller :- keyboard , mice , TV sets
c. Pager:- display short text message
d. Personal digital assistant:- PDA accompany a user and offer simple
version of office software(calendar, notepad, mail etc)
A simplified reference model
• The basic reference model used to structure communication systems.
• End-systems (PDA and computer) need a full protocol stack comprising the
application layer, transport layer, network layer, data link layer, and physical
layer.
• Applications on the end-systems communicate with each other using the
lower layer services.

Functions of each layer in a wireless and mobile environment:-

A. Physical layer:
a. lowest layer
b. sender side :- responsible for the conversion of a stream of bits into
signals
c. receiver side:- transforms the signals back into a bit stream
d. For wireless communication, the physical layer is responsible for
frequency selection, generation of the carrier frequency, signal
detection, signal detection, modulation of data onto a carrier
frequency and encryption
B. Data link layer:
a. Main task : accessing the medium, multiplexing of different data
streams, correction of transmission errors, and synchronization
 b. Data link layer is responsible for a reliable point-to-point connection
between two devices or a point-to-multipoint connection between one
sender and several receivers.
c. Authentication,
C. Network layer:
a. Main task : routing packets through a network or establishing a
connection between two entities over many other intermediate
systems
b. Addressing , routing, device location
D. Transport layer:
a. Main task: used in the reference model to establish an end-to-end
connection
b. Congestion, flow control
E. Application layer: the applications are situated on top of all transmission
oriented layers
Wireless transmission
1. Frequencies for radio transmission
a. The frequency spectrum that can be used for data transmission
b. λ = c/f, where wavelength is λ, c ≅ 3·108 m/s (the speed of light in
vacuum) and f is the frequency.
c. Radio transmission starts at several kHz, Waves in the low frequency
(LF) range are used by submarines
d. Short waves are typically used for (amateur) radio transmission
around the world, enabled by reflection at the ionosphere.
e. Conventional analog TV is transmitted in ranges of 174–230 MHz and
470–790 MHz using the very high frequency (VHF) and ultra high
frequency (UHF) bands.
f. Super high frequencies (SHF) are typically used for directed
microwave links (approx. 2–40 GHz) and fixed satellite services in
the C-band (4 and 6 GHz), Ku-band (11 and 14 GHz), or Ka-band (19
and 29 GHz).
g. Infra red (IR) transmission is used for directed links, e.g., to connect
different buildings via laser links
2. Signals:
a. Signals are the physical representation of data.
b. It is a function of time and location.
c. Signal parameters represents the value of data
d. Classification of signals:-
i. Analog signal = continuous time and continuous value
ii. Digital signal = discrete time and discrete values
e. Layer 1 of the ISO/OSI basic reference model is responsible for the
conversion of data, (bits, into signals and vice versa )
f. The most interesting types of signals for radio transmission are
periodic signals, especially sine waves. The general function of a sine
wave is:
g(t) = At sin(2 π ft t + φt )

g. The frequency f expresses the periodicity of the signal with the period
T = 1/f.
h. to construct periodic signal g by using only sine and cosine functions
by fundamental equation of Fourier:
g(t) = c + ∑ an sin(2πnft) + ∑ bn cos(2πnft)
In this equation the parameter c determines the Direct Current
(DC) component of the signal, the coefficients an and bn are the
amplitudes of the nth sine and cosine function.
i. A typical way to represent
signals is the time domain or
amplitude domain.

j. Representations in the time

domain are problematic if a
signal consists of many
different frequencies. In such
case, a typical way to represent
signals is the frequency domain.
 k. A third way to represent signals
is the phase domain. This
representation is also called
phase state or signal
constellation diagram.

3. Antennas:
a. Antennas couple electromagnetic energy to and from space to and
from a wire or coaxial cable.
b. A theoretical reference antenna is the isotropic radiator, where all
points with equal power are located on a sphere with the antenna as its
center. The radiation pattern is symmetric in all directions.

c. The intensity of radiation in real antennas is not the same in all

directions from the antenna also known as directive effects. The
simplest real antenna is a thin, center-fed dipole, also called Hertzian
dipole.
d. If the antenna mounted on the roof of a car, the length of λ/4 is
efficient. This is also known as Marconi antenna.
e. To overcome environmental challenges by boosting the power level of
the signal, uniform or omni-directional radiation pattern is used.

f. If an antenna is positioned in a valley or between buildings, an

omnidirectional radiation pattern is not very useful. In this case,
directional antennas. Directed antennas are typically applied in
cellular systems.

g. To construct a sectorized antenna several directed antennas can be

combined on a single pole. A cell can be sectorized into three or six
sectors.

h. Multi-element antenna arrays are Combination of two or more

antennas. It is used to improve reception by counteracting the negative
effects of multi-path propagation.
i. In switched diversity or selection diversity, the receiver always uses
the antenna element with the largest output.
j. Smart antennas are combination of multiple antenna elements (also
called antenna array) with signal processing to optimize the
radiation/reception pattern in response to the signal environment.
k. Antenna arrays can be used for beam forming. A directed antenna
uses space division multiplexing.
4. Signal Propagation:
a. Transmission range: Within a certain radius of the sender
transmission is possible with low error rate
b. Detection range: Within a second radius, detection of the
transmission is possible, However, the error rate is too high to
establish communication
c. Interference range: Within a third even larger radius, a receiver will
not be able to detect the signals, but the signals may disturb other
signals.

d. Path loss of radio signals:

i. In free space radio signals propagate in a straight line. If such a
straight line exists between a sender and a receiver it is called
line-of-sight (LOS).
ii. If there is a vacuum, the signal experiences the free space loss.
The received power Pr is proportional to 1/d2 with d being the
distance between sender and receiver (inverse square law).
iii. Most radio transmission takes place through the atmosphere –
signals travel through air, rain, snow, fog, dust particles, smog
etc. While the path loss or attenuation does not cause too much
trouble for short distances.
iv. Radio waves can exhibit three fundamental propagation
behaviors depending on their frequency:
1. Ground wave: follow the earth’s surface and can
propagate long distances. Used for submarine
communication or AM radio.
 2. Sky wave (2–30 MHz): follow the ionosphere. The
waves can bounce back and forth between the ionosphere
and the earth’s surface, travelling around the world.
3. Line-of-sight (>30 MHz): enables direct communication
with satellites (no reflection at the ionosphere) or
microwave links on the ground.
e. Additional signal propagation effects:
i. In real life, we rarely have a line-of-sight between the sender
and receiver of radio signals. An extreme form of attenuation is
blocking or shadowing of radio signals due to large obstacles.
ii. Another effect is the reflection of signals due to huge
buildings, mountains.
iii. Another effect is the refraction. This effect occurs because the
velocity of the electromagnetic waves depends on the density of
the medium through which it travels.

iv. If the size of an obstacle is in the order of the wavelength or

less, then waves can be scattered.
v. Another effect is diffraction of waves. Radio waves will be
deflected at an edge and propagate in different directions.

vi. Effects like attenuation, scattering, diffraction, and refraction all

happen simultaneously and are frequency and time dependent.
It is very difficult to predict the precise strength of signals at a
certain point in space.
 f. Multi-path propagation:
i. Signals can take many different paths between sender and
receiver due to reflection, scattering, diffraction.
ii. Time dispersion: signal is dispersed over time.
iii. Interference with “neighbor” symbols, known as Inter Symbol
Interference (ISI).
iv. If the receiver knows the delays of the different paths, the
sender may first transmit a training sequence known by the
receiver. The receiver then compares the received signal to the
original training sequence and programs an equalizer that
compensates for the distortion.
v. Doppler shift caused by a moving sender or receiver. While
this effect is audible for acoustic waves that is already at low
speed.
5. Multiplexing:
a. Multiplexing describes how several users can share a medium with
minimum or no interference.
b. For wireless communication, multiplexing can be carried out in four
dimensions: space (s), time (t), frequency (f), and code(c).
i. Space division multiplexing:
1. Multiplexing in which separate channels are obtained by
spatially separating signal paths.
2. Each space-division multiplexed channel may be further
multiplexed by time-division multiplexing or frequency-
division multiplexing.
3. Examples of space-division multiplexing are (a) using
separate optical fibers for each channel and placing
many fibers in a single cable and (b) placing many
metallic twisted pairs in a single paired cable.
4. Using SDM, if two or more channels were established
within the same space. Then, one of the following
multiplexing schemes must be used (frequency, time, or
code division multiplexing).
5. Disadvantage: SDMA is very expensive and
complicated to construct and design. There are also high
insertion losses since each input must have the capability
 to be split to any output. The reverse link may be a
problem like an interference problem
ii. Frequency division multiplexing:
1. Frequency division multiplexing (FDM) describes
schemes to subdivide the frequency dimension into
several non-overlapping frequency bands.
2. In FDM, guard spaces are used to avoid frequency band
overlapping (also called adjacent channel interference).
3. This scheme is used for radio stations within the same
region, where each radio station has its own frequency.
4. Disadvantage: Assigning a separate frequency for each
possible communication scenario would be a tremendous
waste of frequency resources.
5. Usage:
a. The standard of the analog telephone network
b. The standard in radio broadcasting
c. The standard for video
i. Broadcast
ii. Cable
iii. Satellite
iii. Time Division Multiplexing:
1. A flexible multiplexing scheme for typical mobile
communications is time division multiplexing (TDM). It
is suitable for digital data.
2. TDM can be used when the data rate available on a
communication link exceeds the data rate required by
anyone of the sources.
3. A TDM multiplexers scans the buffers in some
predetermined order and transmits bits from each source
one after the other.
4. It requires Digital signaling and transmission.
5. Application:
a. It is used in ISDN (Integrated Services Digital
Network) telephone lines.
b. It is used in PSTN (public switched telephone
network).
c. It is used for some telephone system.
 d. It is used in wire line telephone lines.
6. Advantage:
a. More flexible than frequency division
multiplexing.
b. Full available channel bandwidth can be utilized
for each channel.
7. Disadvantage:
a. Complex to implement.
b. Necessary coordination between different senders.
c. Due to slow narrowband fading, all the TDM
channels may get wiped out.
d. Synchronization is required in time division
multiplexing.
iv. Code Division Multiplexing:
1. Each channel has a unique code. All channels use the
same spectrum at the same time.
2. Firstly it was used in military applications due to its
inherent security features. It is used in radar and
navigation systems and mobile communication.
3. An example of CDM is a party with many participants
talking to each other, using the same frequency range. If
everybody speaks the same language, SDM is needed to
be able to communicate.
4. Advantage:
a. The CDMA does not require any synchronization.
b. It has more number of users can share the same
bandwidth.
c. It is well-matched with other cellular technologies.
d. Due to codeword allocated to each user,
interference is reduced.
e. Efficient practical utilization of fixed frequency
spectrum.
5. Disadvantage:
a. The system is more complicated.
b. Guard band and guard time both are required to be
provided.
 c. As the number of users increases, the overall
quality of services decreases.
6. Modulation:
a. For digital modulation, digital data (0 and 1) is translated into an
analog signal (baseband signal). Digital modulation is required if
digital data has to be transmitted over a medium that only allows for
analog transmission.
b. Digital transmission is used in wired local area networks or within a
computer. In wireless networks, digital transmission cannot be used.
Here, the binary bit-stream has to be translated into an analog signal
first.
c. There are three basic methods for digital translation:
i. amplitude shift keying (ASK),
ii. frequency shift keying (FSK),
iii. Phase shift keying (PSK).
d. An analog modulation shifts the center frequency of the baseband
signal generated by the digital modulation up to the radio carrier.
e. Basic schemes for analog modulation:
i. amplitude modulation (AM)
ii. frequency modulation (FM)
iii. Phase modulation (PM).
f. Reason for differ in many issues of the digital modulation schemes :
i. spectral efficiency
ii. power efficiency
iii. robustness
g. Amplitude shift keying is the most simple digital modulation scheme
where the two binary values, 1 and 0, are represented by two different
amplitudes. It requires low bandwidth. Effects like multi-path
propagation, noise, or path loss heavily influence the amplitude. It is
used in wired transmission not in wireless transmission.
h. Frequency shift keying (binary FSK) is used for wireless
transmission. It assigns one frequency f1 to the binary 1 and another
frequency f2 to the binary 0. To avoid sudden changes in phase,
special frequency modulators with continuous phase modulation,
(CPM) can be used.
i. Phase shift keying (PSK) uses shifts in the phase of a signal to
represent data. Shifting the phase by 180° each time the value of data
 changes is also called binary PSK (BPSK). To receive the signal
correctly, the receiver must synchronize in frequency and phase with
the transmitter. This can be done using a phase lock loop (PLL).
j. Minimum shift keying (MSK) is used in wireless system. A high
frequency is always chosen if even and odd bits are equal. The signal
is inverted if the odd bit equals 0.
7. Spread Spectrum:
a. Spread Spectrum techniques are used to spread the bandwidth needed
to transmit data. The main advantage is the resistance to narrowband
interference.
b. Direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS) systems take a user bit
stream and perform an (XOR) with a so-called chipping sequence.
The spreading factor s = tb/tc determines the bandwidth of the
resulting signal.
i. Advantages:
1. reduces frequency selective fading
2. In cellular networks:
a. Base station scan use the same frequency range
b. Several base station can detect and recover the
signal
c. Soft handover
ii. Disadvantages: precise power control necessary
c. In frequency hopping spread spectrum (FHSS) systems the total
available bandwidth is split into many channels of smaller bandwidth
plus guard spaces between the channels.
d. FHSS implements FDM and TDM. The pattern of channel usage is
called the hopping sequence, the time spend on a channel with a
certain frequency is called the dwell time.
e. There are two versions of FHSS :
i. Fast Hoping:
1. It is several frequencies per user bit.
2. It is complex to implement because the transmitter and
receiver have to stay synchronized
ii. Slow Hoping:
1. It is several user bits per frequency.
 2. Slow hopping systems are cheaper, but they are not as
immune to narrowband interference as fast hopping
systems.
f. Advantages:
i. Frequency selective fading and interference limited to short
period
ii. Simple Implementation
iii. Uses only small portion of spectrum at any time
g. Disadvantages:
i. Not as robust as DSSS
ii. Simpler to detect
8. Cellular System:
a. Cellular systems for mobile communications implement SDM. Each
transmitter, typically called a base station, covers a certain area, a cell.
b. Cells are combined in clusters.
c. To reduce interference in cellular system sectorized antenna is used.
d. The fixed assignment of frequencies to cell clusters and cells is known
as fixed channel allocation (FCA).
e. Cells with more traffic are dynamically allotted more frequencies is
known as borrowing channel allocation (BCA).
f. Advantages of cellular systems:
i. Higher capacity
ii. Less transmission power
iii. Local interference only
iv. Robustness
g. Disadvantages of cellular system:
i. Infrastructure needed
ii. Handover needed
iii. Frequency planning