There are two typical mobile computing architectures.
In the General Mobile Computing Architecture, there is a fixed Mobile
Support Station (MSS) that supports all mobile hosts (MHs) roaming within its
cell. When an MH moves out of a
cell and enters a new cell, it can no longer communicate with the previous
cell's MSS, and is under the control of the new cell's MSS. All MSSs communicate with each other via a fixed network.
Our research focuses on the areas of security and transaction management in this
environment.
In the second architecture, called
Mobile Ad-hoc NETwork (MANET) Architecture,
all MHs are roaming and the network that interconnects these MHs is a wireless
network with a frequently changing topology, and there are no fixed
infrastructure and fixed MSSs. MANET architecture is widely used in battlefields and in disaster
recovery situations where it is difficult or not feasible to depend on a static
wired communication infrastructure. Our current research in this area
focuses on data broadcasting, data replication, and transaction
management. Our work in mobile databases has been funded in part by the National
Science Foundation. Click here to learn more about this project.