WPI Computer Science Department

Computer Science Department
------------------------------------------

Home

Research

Publications

Teaching

Projects (MQPs/IQPs)

Service

Misc

CS 528, Mobile and Ubiquitous Computing Class, Spring 2025


General Information

Class: Mondays and Thursdays, 4pm - 5.20pm, Salisbury Labs Room 305

Teaching Assistant: Trusting Inekwe, Email: toinekwe@wpi.edu, Office Hours: TBD
Grader: Antonela Tamagnini, Email: atamagnini@wpi.edu, Office Hours: TBD

Note: All office hours will be held in the Zoolab in the Fuller labs sub-basement.

Instructor: Prof. Emmanuel Agu, FL-135, 508-831-5568, emmanuel@cs.wpi.edu
Office Hours: Fridays, 2 to 3pm; Others by appointment.

Required Texts:

Supplemental Texts:

Class Websites: The class website is at https://web.cs.wpi.edu/~emmanuel/courses/cs528/S25/.

Points Distribution: Presentation 12%, Design Homework 2%, Assigned Projects 36%, Final project: 30%, Quizzes: 20%

Access to course texts and papers: The course texts are available off the WPI library website (http://www.wpi.edu/+library/). A number of the assigned papers are from the ACM and IEEE digital libraries. To access these papers, just go the the WPI Library website , search for the paper title and click on the link that comes up. You may be required to log in using your WPI username and password.

Late Assignment Credit: Late programming assignments will be penalized 15 points off per day (per 24 hours). Assignments later than 4 days late will not be accepted.

Cheating (a.k.a., academic dishonesty): defined as taking credit for work you did not do or knowledge you do not possess, is strictly forbidden. First offenders will receive a zero grade for the assignment or quiz in question and an academic dishonesty report will be filed with the Office of Student Affairs. Repeat offenders will receive an NR for the course and the case will be brought before the campus hearing board (see Student Handbook). Using or submitting code retrieved from online repositories such as gitHub, or which was previously submitted by a student in a previous iteration of this class (or CS 4518 undergraduate version) is considered cheating

Course Overview

The goal of this class is to acquaint participants with some of the fundamental concepts and state-of-the-art research in the computer science areas of mobile computing and ubiquitous computing. This semester's class will including ideas on smartphone apps, mobile sensing, as well as Internet of Things and edge computing. Projects will focus mostly on mobile and ubiquitous computing ideas that are implemented on Android smartphones, but students may be allowed to explore other devices. The course will consist of assigned projects including Android app programming projects, student presentations, discussions and a final project. There will also be quizzes and the students will present papers and selected topics in groups.

Recommended Background: CS 502 or an equivalent graduate level course in Operating Systems, and CS 513 or an equivalent graduate level course in Computer Networks, and proficiency in a high programming language. This semester's class focusses on programming Android applications which is Kotlin-based.

Course Timeline: The TENTATIVE course timeline is summarized below.

Dates Quiz Days Class Topics Deadlines
Thur, Jan 16 1 Course Introduction, Administrivia, Definitions and Examples (Mobile, Ubiquitous Computing, IoT) Design homework assigned
Mon, Jan 20 NO CLASSES : Martin Luther King Day
Thurs, Jan 23 2 Android Overview (APIs, mobile and ubicomp modules) & Android Studio introduction Design homework due, Project 0 assigned
Mon, Jan 27 3 Kotlin Crash Course and Android Hello World
Thurs, Jan 30 Quiz 4 Android JetPack Compose UI Design (Part 1) Project 0 due
Mon, Feb 3 5 Android JetPack Compose UI Design (Part 2) & Mobile HCI Project 1 assigned
Thurs, Feb 6 6 Android JetPack Compose UI Design (Part 3) Students form groups for Projects 2, 3 & Final Project
Mon, Feb 10 Quiz 7 Android Camera (Taking pictures)
Thurs, Feb 13 8 Face analysis & MLKit overview Project 1 due, Project 2 assigned
Mon Feb 17 9 Location-aware computing, Android Location APIs & Maps
Thurs, Feb 20 10 Activity Recognition & Final Project Overview
Mon, Feb 24 Quiz 11 Sensor Programming Project 2 due, Project 3 assigned
Thurs, Feb 27 NO CLASSES : Academic Enrichment Day
Mon, Mar 3 12 Introduction to Machine learning for ubicomp Groups submit 1 slide for proposed final Project
Thurs, Mar 6 Quiz 13 Mobile Sensing Overview Project 3 due, b) Groups select research papers to present
Mon, Mar 10 and Thurs, Mar 13 NO CLASSES: Term Break
Mon, Mar 17 14 Students propose final projects Groups submit proposal slides
Thurs, Mar 20 15 Students propose final projects Groups submit proposal slides
Mon, Mar 24 16 Edge/Fog Computing & Cyber-foraging + 1 student talk
Thurs, Mar 27 17 IoT (architecture, frameworks, etc) + 1 student talk
Mon, Mar 31 NO CLASSES: Wellness Day
Tue, April 1 (Monday Schedule) 18 Voice-based Analytics + 1 student talks
Thurs, April 3 19 Large Language Models (LLMs), ChatGPT-o + 1 student talk
Mon, April 7 20 Wearables and Physiological Sensing + 1 student talk
Thurs, April 10 Quiz 21 Energy efficiency + 1 student talk
Mon, April 14 22 Mobile measurements and characterizations + 1 student talk
Mon, April 17 23 Mobile Health + 1 student talk
Mon, April 21 NO CLASSES: Patriots Day
Thurs, April 17 24 Machine learning/on-device deep learning + 1 student talk
Thurs, April 24 25 Security + 1 student talk
Mon, April 28 26 Students present final projects
Thurs, May 1 27 Students present final projects Final Projects Due

Student Presentations: In preparing your talk, please use the following powerpoint template for uniformity. Also please send me your powerpoint slides by noon on the day of your talk so that I can make the slides available on class website. A summary of presentation guidelines can be found [ HERE ]. All students will also be expected to participate in class discussions.

Programming Projects: For programming projects, students will either run their work on the Android Studio emulator or use their own Android phones if they own up-to-date Android phones. Android Studio is installed in the Zoolab in Fuller basement. For students who do have access to Android phones, a few phones will be available to be loaned to students FOR THE ASSIGNED PROJECTS. It is anticipated that most of the final projects will involve building an Android application or classification of sensor data. The final projects will typically create a mobile/ubicomp solution to a societal problem.

[Feedback] [Search Our Web] [Help & Index]

[Return to the WPI Homepage] [Return to CS Homepage]

mailto:webmaster@cs.wpi.edu