The need for information anywhere anytime has been a driving force for the increasing growth in Web and Internet technology, wireless communication, and portable computing devices. The field of mobile computing is the merger of these advances in computing and communication with the aim of providing seamless and ubiquitous computing environment for mobile users. Mobile computing environments are characterized by severe resource constraints and frequent changes in operating conditions. This has led to many new and challenging problems which span several areas of computer science such as incorporation of support for mobility in network protocols, development of efficient and adaptive resource management techniques for wireless bandwidth and battery power, predicting mobility patterns, performance modeling and simulation of mobile applications, and supporting mobile real-time multimedia applications.

The goal of this course is to provide an in depth understanding of the fundamental problems in the area of mobile computing and study the existing and proposed solutions for these problems from both research and development perspective. Several topics including wireless communication, location management and mobility tracking, location-aware information services, and mobile agents will be covered in this course. The course will be mostly self contained and will cover any required background material. Course work will involve programming and homework assignments, exams/quizzes, and term project.