Mobile Computing

UNIT-I Notes

Mobile Computing

Mobile Computing is an umbrella term used to describe technologies that enable people to access
the network services anywhere any time.

Mobile Computing can be defined as a computing environment over physical mobility. The provision
and utilization of a computing environment that a user can access and use to communicate, and
access remote information and services anywhere anytime on the move.

Mobile Computing is the process of computing on a Mobile Device.

In Mobile Computing, a set of distributed computing systems or service provider servers participate,
connect and synchronize through mobile communication protocols.
Nomadic Computing

It is the use of portable computing devices (such as laptop and handheld computers) in conjunction
with mobile communications technologies to enable users to access the Internet and data on their
home or work computers.

Nomadic computing refers to limited migration. Migration is within a building at a pedestrian speed.
Interleaved pattern of user relocation and indoor connections. Users carrying laptop with dialup
modems are engaged in nomadic computing.

Mobile Computing

Requires wireless h/w to support outdoor mobility and handoff from one n/w to the next n/w at the
pedestrian speed or vehicular speed. Eg. A person moving in a car using a mobile device connected
with GSM/ WCDMA/HSPA.

Ubiquitous Computing

"Ubiquitous computing is the method of enhancing

computer use by making many computers available
throughout the physical environment, but making
them effectively invisible to the user.”
-Mark Weiser
“father” of ubiquitous Computing

Ubiquitous computing cannot be realized unless Mobile Computing matures.

Technology for Realizing Mobile Computing

Wireless communication networks

–multiple networks “covering” the globe

–world-wide deregulation and spectrum auctions

–standard communication systems

Telecommunication Networks

•2G - GSM,

•2.5 G- GSM with GPRS (General Packet Radio Service – 115 Kbps, EDGE ( Enhanced Data rate for
Global Evolution) – speeds upto 384 Kbps

•3G- UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunication System), HSPA 7.2 Mbps, HSPA+ 168 Mbps
theoretically upto 21 Mbps in reality

•4G- LTE 1Gbps (stationary and 100 Mbps at vehicular speed) but currently offers upto 50 Mbps.

Wireless Data networks

•Wireless PAN – Bluetooth

•Wireless LAN – IEEE 802.11 (WiFi), HIPERLAN

•Wireless Broadband – WiMax (World-wide interoperability over Microwave Access)

The advances in h/w technology (VLSI, antenna and battery) led to the emergence of Portable
information appliances

 laptops, notebooks,, hand-held computers, netbooks, Tabs

 PDAs and Smartphones
 More computing power in smaller devices
 Flat, lightweight displays with low power consumption
 New interfaces due to smaller dimensions
 More bandwidth
 Multiple wireless techniques.
Internet:

–TCP/IP & de-facto application protocols

–ubiquitous web content

The advances in software technology eg. Software Engineering, language technology, distributed
computing and modern mobile databases have led to various mobile services and mobile
applications.

Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC) is the combination of cloud computing, mobile computing and
wireless networks to bring rich computational resources to mobile users, network operators, as well
as cloud computing providers. The ultimate goal of MCC is to enable execution of rich mobile
applications on a plethora of mobile devices, with a rich user experience. MCC provides business
opportunities for mobile network operators as well as cloud providers. More comprehensively, MCC
can be defined as "a rich mobile computing technology that leverages unified elastic resources of
varied clouds and network technologies towards unrestricted functionality, storage, and mobility to
serve a multitude of mobile devices anywhere, anytime through the channel of Ethernet or Internet
regardless of heterogeneous environments and platforms based on the pay-as-you-use principle.
Internet of Things and Sensors technology

Internet of Things (IoT)

Extending the current Internet and providing connection, communication, and inter-networking
between devices and physical objects, or "Things," is a growing trend that is often referred to as the
Internet of Things.

“The technologies and solutions that enable integration of real world data and services into the
current information networking technologies are often described under the umbrella term of the
Internet of Things (IoT)”

IoT is enabling computing at Any TIME, Any PLACE and between Any THING i.e. M2M. By 2020 about
50 Billion interconnected IoT devices is expected. Everybody will be connected. Interconnection of
More and more things, IPv6, Broadband Enhancements, Smart networks Data-centric and content-
oriented networking Context-aware (autonomous) systems are emerging fast to turn the goals of
IOT and Pervasive Computing into a reality.
Mobility Scenarios

Mobility Refers to the Physical Movement of both User and Terminal/ Mobile Device. In mobile
computing both physical and logical computing entities move. The physical entities are the mobile
devices that are changing locations and the logical entities are the running user applications or the
mobile agents migrating over the Internet.

User Mobility: User can access the same service at different locations. There is dynamic association
between terminal and user.

For eg. a user goes from Agra to Delhi and uses Internet to access the corporate applications the
same way he accesses them from his office network.

Device/Terminal Mobility: Means the mobile terminal can access the desired services from any
location even while it is on the move irrespective of who is carrying the device. This represents a
static relationship between the network and the device. In short it is the ability of the network to
roam within a n/w or between n/ws with on-going communication.

Example: Roaming facility, voice and data services of a Mobile Phone or a Tablet Computer.

Service Mobility: Personalized services available to a user with one network can still be accessible by
another mobile device and or other N/w of different region or operator and operate in the new
context.

Network Mobility: Refers to the Wireless N/Ws that support the connection to mobile devices.
Some wireless connections may be based on an infrastructure less architecture ( a collection of
nodes can dynamically form a n/w using a pre existing fixed n/w infrastructure).

Macro cells: Macro cells are large cells that are usually used for remote or sparsely populated
areas. These may be 10 km or possibly more in diameter.
Micro cells: Micro cells are those that are normally found in densely populated areas which may
have a diameter of around 1 km.

Pico cells: Pico cells are generally used for covering very small areas such as particular areas of
buildings, or possibly tunnels where coverage from a larger cell in the cellular system is not possible.
Obviously for the small cells, the power levels used by the base stations are much lower and the
antennas are not position to cover wide areas. In this way the coverage is minimised and the
interference to adjacent cells is reduced.

Femtocell is a small, low-power cellular base station, typically designed for use in a home or small
business.

Challenges of Mobile Computing

•Frequent Disconnections
•Low bandwidth and high latency
•High variability of the bandwidth ( applications have to adapt to the quality of connectivity.
•Low power and low resources
•Security risks due to wireless transmission and due to the mobility of the host.
•Wide variety of devices with different capabilities and different attributes.
•Fit more functionality into smaller devices
•Cost of communication is asymmetric.
•Transmission Interferences: Proper transmission/reception depends upon weather, terrain,
vegetation, the nearest signal point and the interference with other signals.
•Higher error rates, congestion, interference, etc.
•Performance depends on the density of the nearby users.
•Possibility of loss of data due to defects, damage or theft of the device.
Limitations of the Mobile Environment
 Limitations of the Wireless Network
 Heterogeneity of fragmented networks
 Frequent disconnections
 Limited communication bandwidth
 Limitations Imposed by Mobility
 Limitations of the Mobile Computer

Frequent Disconnections
 Handoff blank out (>1ms for most cellulars)
 Drained battery disconnection
 Battery recharge down time
 Voluntary disconnection (turned off to preserve battery power, also off overnight)
 Theft and damage (hostile environment)
 Roam-off disconnections

Limited Communication Bandwidth

 Orders of magnitude slower than fixed network
 Higher transmission bit error rates (BER)
 Uncontrolled cell population
 Difficult to ensure Quality of Service (QoS)
 Availability issues (admission control)
 Asymmetric duplex bandwidth
 Limited communication bandwidth

Limitations of the Mobile Computer

 Short battery lifetime (max ~ 5 hours)
 Subject to theft and destruction
 Highly unavailable (normally powered-off to conserve battery)
 Limited capability (display, memory, input devices, and disk space)
 Lack of de-facto general architecture: hand-helds, communicators, laptops, and other
devices

Physical location of mobile is not the network address (address migration)

 Existing applications send packets to a fixed network address
 Need to support dynamically changing “local” addresses as mobile device moves through
network
 How do we route the message to a mobile host

Limitations Imposed by Mobility

 Lack of mobility-awareness by applications
 inherently transparent programming model
 Lack of environment test and set API support
 Lack of mobility-awareness by the system
  Network: existing transport protocols are inefficient to use across heterogeneous mix of
fixed/wireless networks
 Session and presentation: inappropriate for the wireless environment and for mobility
 Operating systems: lack of env. related conditions and signals
 Client/server: unless changed, inappropriate and inefficient

Security concerns
–Authentication is critical
•normal network point of attachment is a wall tap
•wireless access makes network attachment too easy
–Exposure to over-the-air wiretapping
•any transmitter can also be a receiver!

Handoff management
–a mobile host moves from one cell to another while being connected
–undesirable features
•call dropping
•ping-pong handoffs
–vertical handoff among heterogeneous networks is another issue which needs to be addressed.

Three main uses of NFC

Card emulation: the NFC device behaves like an existing contactless card
Reader mode: the NFC device is active and read a passive RFID tag, for example for interactive
advertising
P2P mode: two NFC devices are communicating together and exchanging information

Applications of NFC
Mobile ticketing in public transport — an extension of the existing contactless infrastructure
Mobile payment — the device acts as a debit/ credit payment card
Smart poster — the mobile phone is used to read RFID tags on outdoor billboards in order to get info
on the move
Bluetooth pairing — pairing of Bluetooth devices with NFC bringing them close together and
accepting the pairing

Other applications of NFC

 Electronic ticketing — airline tickets, concert/event tickets, and others
 Electronic money
 Travel cards
 Identity documents
 Mobile commerce
 Electronic keys — car keys, house/office keys, hotel room keys, etc.
 NFC can be used to configure and initiate other wireless network connections such as
Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or Ultra-wideband
Smart City
A smart city is one that has digital technology embedded across all city functions. It brings together
technology, government and society to enable the following characteristics: smart cities, a smart
economy, smart mobility, a smart environment, smart people, smart living, smart governance.
Building Smart Cities is not possible without Pervasive Computing in place.
Users of Mobile Computing
•Energy Supply Companies
•Universities
•Airlines
•Industry
•E-commerce
•Transportation- traffic monitoring, location tracking, congestion avoidance, etc.
•Utility Services
•Banks
•ATMs
•Hospitals
•Stock Trading
•Hospitals- Patient monitoring, Telemedicine
•Insurance Companies- mobile apps for insurance policies , renewals, claims, etc.
•Hotels – online booking
•Intelligent offices
•Intelligent Homes – context aware , cable less homes, recognizing the inhabitants, climate control
•Meeting Rooms- for instant data sharing, instant voting, finding people with similar interests

Taxi/ Police/Fire and Ambulance services – to connect, control and communicate

•Journalists, Scientists and travellers- satellite Internet services
•Disaster Relief
–Earthquakes/ Tsunami/Volcanic eruptions/train accidents/ flash floods
•Early detection possible in some cases with sensors and alarms
•Transmission of information about the patients to the hospitals, etc.

Tsunami Detection and early Warning System installed on the Indian Ocean bed

 Precision Agriculture
 Precision Dairy Farming

Effect of Mobility on the Protocol Stack

Physical Layer
A wireless channel varies with a number of mobility factors including velocity, direction, place
(indoor/ outdoor). Resource reuse and avoiding interference are two important problems at physical
layer.

Data Link Layer

Mobility based on wireless n/ws brings problems of bandwidth, reliability and security for which
compression, encryption and error correction are required. Other problems include fixed or dynamic
channel allocation algorithms, collision detection and avoidance measures, QoS resource
management.

Network Layer
At this layer mobility of the nodes means that new routing algorithms are needed in order to change
the routing of packet to a moving node to its new point of attachment in the network. So how to
track node’s movement and how to maintain the connectivity of the moving node are the basic
issues in this layer. These in turn form the two main operations of mobility management.

Transport Layer
End-to-end connection may be a mix of wired and wireless links. This makes congestion control a
complex task due to the different characteristics of wired and wireless n/ws, since packet loss is
caused mainly by high error rates and handoffs in wireless n/ws instead of congestion as in case of
wired networks. Retransmission mechanism based on increasing interval may lead to an
unnecessary drop in the data rate.

Context-aware computing
•Context-aware computing is a mobile computing paradigm in which applications can discover and
take advantage of contextual information such as user location, time of day, nearby people and
devices, and user activity.
•Computing context, such as network connectivity, communication costs, and communication
bandwidth, and nearby resources such as printers, displays, and workstations.
User context, such as the user’s profile, location, people nearby, even the current social situation.
•Physical context, such as lighting, noise levels, traffic conditions, and temperature.
•Time context, such as time of a day, week, month, and season of the year. More importantly, when
the computing, user and physical contexts are recorded across a time span, we obtain a context
history, which could also be useful for certain applications.

Cellular Network Organization

•Multiple low power transmitters
–100w or less
•The whole geographical area is divided into a number of hexagonal shaped cells
–Each with its own antenna
–Each with its own range of frequencies
–Served by base station
•Transmitter, receiver, control unit
–Adjacent cells use different frequencies to avoid crosstalk/ interference.
Shape of Cells

Circular Pattern

Square
–Width d cell has four neighbours at distance d and four at distance 1.414 d
–Better if all adjacent antennas are equidistant
Simplifies choosing and switching to new antenna

Circular Pattern
In circular shaped cell design circular cell cannot fully cover a geographic region as shown in the
figure. If the cells are overlapped then it results in the overlapping of the used channels leading to
interference.

Hexagon
On the contrary hexagonal cells approximate the circular radiation pattern and the adjacent Base
Station antennas placed at the centres of such cells are equidistant. Moreover it has the largest
coverage among the three shapes. Because of these reasons hexagonal shape is highly desirable.
However, due to topographical problems practical limitations in installing the BSs at the desirable
site exact hexagonal shape cannot be implemented. Some of the practical problems include:
 Topographical limitations
 Local signal propagation conditions
 Location of antennas and their directional bias
 Land disputes
 Terrain, foliage and high rise buildings leading to difficulty in direct line of sight.

Frequency reuse
•It is a method used by service providers to improve the efficiency of a cellular network and to serve
millions of subscribers using a limited radio spectrum
•It is based on the fact that after a distance a radio wave gets attenuated and the signal falls below a
point where it can no longer be used or cause any interference
•A transmitter transmitting in a specific frequency range will have only a limited coverage area
•beyond this coverage area, that frequency can be reused by another transmitter.
Power of base transceiver controlled
–Allow communications within cell on given frequency
–Limit escaping power to adjacent cells
–Allow re-use of frequencies in nearby cells
–Use same frequency for multiple conversations
–10 – 50 frequencies per cell
•E.g.
–N cells all using same number of frequencies
–K total number of frequencies used in systems
–Each cell has K/N frequencies
–Advanced Mobile Phone Service (AMPS) K=395, N=7 giving 57 frequencies per cell on average
Setting up a call
•when powered on, the phone does not have a frequency/ time slot/code assigned to it yet; so it
scans for the control channel of the BTS and picks the strongest signal
•then it sends a message (including its identification number) to the BTS to indicate its presence
•the BTS sends an acknowledgement message back to the cell phone
•the phone then registers with the BTS and informs the BTS of its exact location
•after the phone is registered to the BTS, the BTS assigns a channel to the phone and the phone is
ready to receive or make calls

Making a call
•The subscriber dials the receiver’s number and sends it to the BTS
•The BTS sends to its BSC the ID, location and number of the caller and also the number of the
receiver
•The BSC forwards this information to its MSC
•The MSC routes the call to the receiver’s MSC which is then sent to the receiver’s BSC and then to
its BTS
•The communication with the receiver’s cell phone is established
1.On receiving the request msg. the BS transfers the request Msg. to the concerned MSC.
2.The MSC validates the request Msg. and then instructs the BS to assign a pair of unused FVC
(Forward Voice Channel) and RVC (Reverse Voice Channel) to the called MS.
3. MSC then connects the MS with the called party by performing the following tasks.
i. MSC dispatches the request to all its BSCs
ii. MIN of the called MS is paged by all the BSCs
iii. The called MS responds to the paging over RCC.
iv. The concerned serving BSC sends the ACK to the MSC.
v. The MSc instructs BSC to assign a pair of unused channels (FVC and RVC) to the called MS
vi. The serving BS also sends an alert Msg. to the called MS to ring.
5. Both the caller and called MSs begin voice transmission and reception.

Receiving a call
•When the receiver’ phone is in an idle state it listens for the control channel of its BTS
•If there is an incoming call the BSC and BTS sends a message to the cells in the area where the
receiver’s phone is located
•The phone monitors its message and compares the number from the message with its own
•If the numbers matches the cell phone sends an acknowledgement to the BTS
•After authentication, the communication is established between the caller and the receiver

Cluster
Consider a cellular system which has a total of S channels available and each cell is allocated a group
of k channels(k <S).
S= k N
The N cells which collectively use the complete set of available frequencies is called a cluster.
 Shift Parameters (i,j) Cluster Size N Co-Channel Reuse Ratio Q
i=1, j=1 3 3
i=1, j=2 7 4.58
i=2, j=2 12 6
i=1, j=3 13 6.28

Cell Design
If a cluster is replicated M times the total number of allocated duplex channels is C= MKN=MS out of
which S channels are unique.
Therefore C denotes the capacity of the network.
The ratio Q=D/R is referred to as the frequency reuse ratio. For a fixed cell size R if the cluster size is
increased then D also increases.
The main design criteria of a cellular network are
1. To Maximize capacity C=MKN. This requires choosing a small value of N.
2. To reduce interference the value of N i.e. the cluster size should be large.
The two objectives are conflicting therefore a trade-off between the capacity and interference is
desirable.
 Desired BS Interfering BS

𝐷𝑖

If we consider a forward link where as r=R when the mobile Station is within cell
boundary /at the boundary and
Assuming that the transmitted power of each BS is equal and n is the same throughout the coverage
area.

∑
If all the interfering BSs are equidistant from the desired BS and if this distance is equal to the
distance D between co-channels then
( )

Considering only the first –tier co-channels

 ( ) (√ )

For a given acceptable SIR the frequency reuse ratio Q can be computed. Then from Q the cluster
size N can be decided.