Networking, mobile, and distributed computing

• Cloud computing
• Wired and wireless networking
• Distributed algorithms
• Distributed and peer-to-peer systems
• Mobile computing

Life depends on communication devices today as never before. Members of society have become used to being connected at all times, via smartphones, laptops, and desktop computers, using either wired or wireless connectivity. In recent years, new classes of mobile devices have emerged, including things like smart TVs and watches. These combine sensing, computing, and communications on the same platforms. As these devices percolate into society, they will continue to fuel entirely new kinds of technologies and applications. To support this future, mechanisms are necessary to allow a collection of devices to sense the world around them, collaborate, and make inferences about their surroundings. Efficient networking protocols are of significant interest to transfer large amounts of data between Internet endpoints. Distributed computing, the notion of dividing tasks between different computers, is vital to support scalability and fault-tolerance – no single computer can be responsible for large scale computations, privacy, storage, and distribution.

Suggested Technical Electives:

ECE 461 Digital Communication
ECE 428 Distributed Systems
ECE 438 Communication Networks
ECE 439 Wireless Networks
ECE 498 Smartphone Computing and Applications
ECE 526 Distributed Algorithms