Challenges of Mobile Computing

[Forman & Zahorjan, 1994]

Wireless Communication

Disconnection
Low Bandwidth
High bandwidth variability
Heterogenous network
Security

 Mobility

Address migration
Location-dependent information
Migrating locality

Portability

Power consumption (see Table 1)

Form factor
Small user interface and storage capacity
Risks to data and physical damage

Xerox PARCTAB
A first attempt at a thin
handheld client for ubiquitous
computing office environment

Ubiquitous Computing Philosophy

Demand less of our attention than current
computers
Advantages of an intelligently orchestrated
and highly connected system.
Context-aware features

Users current location

Identities of user and nearby people
Identities and status of nearby resources
Physical parameters (time, temperature, )

PARCTAB Design Goals

Small, light and aesthetically pleasing
Reliable wireless connectivity
Tracking mechanism to know its location
(resolution of a room)
Run on batteries for atleast one day
without recharging
Allow casual interaction (even with one
hand)
Display graphics & text, touch-screen
Reasonable cost of hardware and network

Hardware (1995!)
12 MHz, 8-bit Intel 87C524
Microcontroller (with low power modes)
128 KB memory
2.4in*1.8in LCD (128*64 monochrome
pixels)
Buttons + Touch-screen
215g in weight (battery is 70g)
Consumes 27mA at 5V (normal) and 30uA
(low power mode) needs only around 1
charge per week (around 400 minutes)

Communication
Space and power constraints
Infrared (IR)
9600/19200 baud
IR signals are contained by walls
One transceiver per room (cell)
Transceiver is connected to RS-232
port of a workstation in the room
(which is on a LAN)

Transceiver
Coverage around 20ft radius
Performs transmission, receiving,
coding, decoding, buffering, protocol
checks.
Transmission: 2 dozen IR emitters
placed at 15 degree intervals
Reception: 2 detectors provide 360
degree coverage

Transmission Control
1

Type Len.

4
Dest.

4
Src.

3-247
Payload

Time division multiplexing of medium

CSMA protocol to provide access to IR
channel with exponential backoff when
busy.
Ack needed bit in Type forcing explicit
acknowledgements

2
CS

User Interface
Buttons + Touch-screen
Keyboard entry + Unistrokes
Display can only show 8 lines of 21
characters
Elision and incremental searches

Software Architecture
Tab1
Agent

RS232

Tab1
IR

Gateway
Tab2
Agent

Tab4

Tab3

Shell
Shell
Locate
Shell

Gateway

IR

Video

Tab3
Agent

Vote

Calendar
Tab2

IR

Tab4
Agent

Gateway
Transceiver
Ethernet

Shell
Mail

 Tabs resemble dumb terminals

Execute simple local functions in response
to remote procedure calls (RPCs)
There is one tab agent for each tab that
maintains current info. (eg location)
Request from application comes to agent,
which forwards to appropriate gateway,
which then sends it to transceiver on RS232 to be broadcast using IR
Events from tab are sent to the
appropriate agent in the reverse direction

 Simple tab functions (displaytext,

displaybitmap, generatetones, wakeup, etc)
Generates beacon events every 30 secs for
location
Gateway uses a name service to locate tab
agent
Appends a return address and location id to
the agent
A centralized location service keeps track
of each tabs location that is updated by
tab agent

Example Applications
Information access
Weather forecast, dictionary, thesaurus, file
browser, WWW, Diary (of days activities)

Communication
Mail, locator, pager

Media applications
Computer supported collaboration
Group pointing, voting,

Remote Control

The InfoPad Mutimedia Terminal

For wireless information access and
display of multimedia data
Again a very thin client does only
wireless communication and I/O
processing
It is like a switch between the
backend and the I/O devices

InfoPad Hardware
Wireless
Network Interface
(FPGA)

Speech
Codec
Video
Decomp
Processor
ARM60 10MHz
512K RAM, 128K ROM

Display

Keyboard,
Pointer

Other
I/O

Power breakdown (9.6Watts)