Customer Reviews

Fundamentals of Mobile and Pervasive Computing

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is a good entry point for someone wishing to learn about wireless computing and communication. It provides a broad survey of the various kinds of wireless applications and implementation design patterns, discussing the technology performance limitations and trade-offs that motivate each design decision. The viability and effectiveness of every design choice depends upon the other choices taken, motivating many complex mathematical optimization problems.

I began reading this book with the assumption that wireless application design rested on the same principles as the design of ordinary distributed computer systems, save for a narrower communication bandwidth, and occasional planned disconnections. This book made me realize that things are much more complicated in the wireless world. In ordinary distributed systems, the main challenge is the design of a static scheme for distributing work among communicating components. Once that is done, one can pretty much separate the infrastructure oriented code from the business logic. In the wireless world, the communication bandwidth's variability and lack of reliability requires the distribution of tasks to react to changing network conditions; this radically increases the difficulty of separating infrastructure concerns from business logic. The limitations of typical mobile devices (small memory, limited power, and slow processor speed) only add to the developer's burden. In designing an application for a pre-existing wireless system, traditional methods of program organization may not be appropriate. The need to discover or invent algorithms that take into account a mobile network's unique characteristics creates a challenge somewhat akin to that faced by the early users of novel massively-parallel computer architectures.

One learns that there are no general purpose easy answers to these problems, but the book does an excellent job in laying out the issues, concerns and approaches, while providing ample bibliographies of published research that readers can delve into for their specific problem. The reader comes away with a familiarity in the terms, concepts and acronyms used in the wireless community, providing an excellent foundation for further reading in the literature (which, unfortunately, is not always as well-written or accessible to the newcomer as is this text).

The importance of this book is due to the consumer demand for wireless devices. People are getting accustomed to the idea of carrying PDAs and having wireless connections at home, office, and even coffeehouses. But how can you secure the connection? How fast can you send data? How do you even know that there's something to connect to nearby?

I've just joined a project in my job that deals with wireless communication, and I had only superficial knowledge of the area. What I got out of this book was an awareness of all the issues and tradeoffs involved in the field. I also found the text to be filled with many explanations, so it was a surprisingly easy read for such a technical topic. It's very up to date as the last few chapters discuss WiMAX.

I'm looking at doing a project involving a distributed ad-hoc sensor/actuator network. Reading data sheets from various vendors is fine, but I wanted an overall look at the theoretical landscape to get myself oriented. This book did a great job of presenting the state of the art - problems, solutions, research areas. It uses specific technology examples to motivate the discussion, but its focus on fundamentals should make it widely applicable and relevant for some years to come.