PROJECT  GUIDELINES

There will be one project during the semester.  The purpose of the project task is to deepen and/or broaden the student knowledge and abilities in wireless networks. It will be worth 40 percent of the final course grade.  All students are required to do a project (or term paper) being worth 40% of the final grade. The project may take any one of some combination of the following forms: a programming project, a simulation or analytical study, or a critical review of a paper.

The project may be done individually or in teams of two or more students, provided that the tasks of each team member  are clearly identified.  All projects must be approved by the instructor.  The  project will be completed in three phases, each being graded separately.  You are encouraged to discuss project ideas with the instructor and to submit your proposal as early as possible.

Topic Selection
You may choose the project topic from a list of sample topics handed out by the instructor or can suggest a topic related to material. After choosing a topic, you are requested to consult with the  instructor for getting his consent on the topic.  A number of suggested project topics are posted on the web. You are required to choose a project topic within the first three weeks of classes.

Basic Steps of Project
First, you need to identify a specific problem related to the course material, so that you should be able to write down the statement of problem in the introduction part of your final report. Second, you should learn the existing approaches to that problem by doing the literature search. Third, by doing brainstorming on the possible new approaches to that problem, you should come up with a new or modified approach that may not be better than the existing approaches. Fourth, do some sort of performance analysis for all the available approaches and your approach using available free/commercial simulators or writing your own simulators or employing analytical techniques; just do your best in this part. Finally, write down your final report and, if required, give a presentation on your project. As explained below, you should not forget to submit your progress report by its due date.

Three Phases of Project
The  project will be completed in three phases, each being graded separately.  These phases are submission of  progress report, giving a presentation, and submission of final report.

Progress Report
You are required to submit a progress report summarizing work already performed by Thursday October 17, 2002.  Your progress report should clearly introduce the specific problem on which you have been working. It should also contain a section describing the well-known approaches to the problem. The progress report may not contain any information about the performance analysis since I do not expect you to have started working on the performance analysis by its due date. The progress report should be in the paper format.   

Presentation
In the last four classes of the semester, each volunteer student will deliver a presentation on his/her project. Due to the shortage of time, some presentations may be held out of class time. For more information, please click project presentations and schedule .

Final Report
By the last day of classes of the semester, you are requested to submit the final report to the instructor. The length of this report should be about 20-25 double-spaced typing pages. The final report will be evaluated based on the following five grading criteria. (These five grading criteria, along with its weights,  should be typed in the front cover of the report in the same way shown below). The final report should be in the paper format.

          Grading   Criteria of Final Report

Grading Policy of  Project
If no presentation is given, the final score for the project will be calculated based on the following grading policy: If a presentation is given, the final score for the project will be calculated based on the following grading policy: