Honours Project Offers - 1999

If you are interested in networking and multimedia distributed applications, here are some of the projects on offer in 1999

• Design, Implementation of a native-mode ATM transport layer.
  Most current ATM networks use transmission control protocol (TCP) as the transport layer, with IP-over-ATM providing the network layer. This approach, though necessary in the short-term. is likely to soon prove inadequate for three reasons. First, ATM networks will provide end-to-end quality of service (QoS) guarantees to individual virtual circuits (VCs). These are lost by internet protocol (IP), since it multiplexes multiple transport connections with disparate QoS requirements onto a single VC. Second, TCP checksums a packet to detect corruption. Since checksumming requires every byte of a packet to be touched, it is a significant overhead. Since ATM adaptation layer 5 (AAL5) already does data checksumming, this TCP functionality is redundant and costly. Third, TCP has inherited the patches and fixes of two decades of protocol tuning, its performance is heavily dependent on particulars of the operating environments. There is a need for a transport layer that a) can guarantee service quality, relatively independent of the operating environment, b) exploit the services of an underlying AAL5 layer, and c) make use of the ATM congestion control for traffic admission control. The project aims to design, implement and test (on a simulator) such a transport layer (i.e a native-mode ATM transport layer).
• Desktop Videoconference system over ATM network
  This project aims to implement an experimental desktop videoconference system. The system will be used for investigating various problems associated with multimedia applications over ATM network. In particular we are interested in investigating the following problems: - designing object-based multimedia applications - designing user interface for multimedia applications - exploring transport protocol for real-time variable bit rate traffic - investigating the performance of videoconference using TCP/IP over ATM network
• Client/Server Application over Wireless Network
  The aim of the project is to study wireless data network as a distributed application platform. A simple wireless data network application will be developed. We are interested in implementing mechanisms for improving TCP performance over wireless links. The Motorola's DataTAC 500 network service and Motorola's InfoTAC personal wireless modems devices were used for the project. The project assumes you know C and/or C++. You should also prepare to learn programming in Windows and Win32 API.
• Object-based approach to protocol software
  Most network control protocols do not fit well in the layering network architecture. An object-based approach may be more suitable alternative for modelling network protocols. The aim of the project is to investigate various object-based approaches for modelling network protocols, in particular for modelling the ATM signalling protocol.

If you are interested in projects in Neural Computing, you should talk to Dr Mark James.