The mobile systems group works on the design, modeling, and analysis of future networked communication systems, with focus on mobile and wireless networking. Lead by Christian Bettstetter, we are engaged in research on algorithms and protocols, networking theory, modeling and simulation aspects, and system architectures. A major focus is on networked embedded systems with applications to communications, pervasive computing, and automotive. Four networking paradigms are currently in the core of our activities: self-organization, ad hoc relaying, cooperation, and mobility. Our teaching covers graduate courses on mobile networking and wireless communications and undergraduate courses on electricity and magnetism. Established in 2005, we are part of the Institute of Networked and Embedded Systems (NES) and reside in the Lakeside Science & Technology Park. We are also part of Lakeside Labs, a university-affiliated research center developing concepts, technologies, and algorithms for self-organizing networked systems.

Freezing rain causes an accident on a highway. Sensors attached to cars detect this event and communicate it via WLAN to other cars to inform oncoming drivers. The implementation of new WLAN technologies for car-to-car communication is running at full speed. Bettstetter and his team have also been tackling this problem. Their key ideas lead to filing two patent applications. Esther Farys, Kleine Zeitung, reports.

We proudly present Udo Schilcher and Helmut Adam. The two research and teaching staff members at the Mobile Systems Group were recently awarded their PhD-degrees. Both theses were supervised by Univ.-Prof. Christian Bettstetter.

The Pervasive Computing Group organized the first summer school of the Erasmus Mundus doctoral school on Interactive and Cognitive Environments. The IEEE/ICE Summer School on Networked Embedded Systems took place from September 3-7, 2011 in Klagenfurt and attracted 35 participants from 17 different countries.

The summer school included 8 lectures, 2 tutorials, student presentations, a lab tour and an excursion to Infineon Austria in Villach. The lectures were given by world experts in the field including Ian F. Akyildiz (GaTech), Kay Roemer (Univ. Luebeck), Carlo Regazzoni (Univ. Genua) and Andrea Cavallaro (QM Univ. London).

Click here for photos and videos!

The Federation of Carinthian Industry awards Johannes Klinglmayr - doctoral student at the Mobile Systems Group and Lakeside Labs researcher - with a € 10.000 scholarship to promote his work and spend a sabbatical at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization in Germany.

The Research Days are an annual event concentrating on the core competence of Lakeside Labs - Self-organizing Networked Systems.

This year focus will be laid on applications of self-organization in technology. A group of international researchers will discuss how a translation between complex systems theory, domain-specific theory, and practical application can be achieved in order to cope with the emerging complexity of networked applications.

Please turn to the Lakeside Labs homepage for more information and registration.
 

iBraitenberg - iPhone meets Lego Mindstorms

In the course of his research project, Dominik Egarter - master student at our institute - developed a Braitenberg Vehicle maneuverable with an iPhone App.

Braitenberg Vehicles lack a complex central steering, but are controlled via networking sensors and actuators. With the help of two separately operating wheels it can either approach or avoid a light source identified by sensors, thus expressing LOVE and HATE.

Dominik's work was supported by the Lakeside Labs-project MESON. 

IWSOS 2011

The fifth International Workshop on Self-Organizing Systems (IWSOS) was held in Karlsruhe, Germany, with significant presence from the Mobile Systems Group: altogether one research paper and four posters were presented. Besides the paper presentations from interdisciplinary research fields like wireless communication, future networking, or distributed systems engineering, the big variety in posters gave an overview on the wide application area for self-organizing systems.

Hermann Haken and Hod Lipson highlighted the workshop. Their keynote presentations gave insight into both the history and the development of self organization and possible applications in future complex systems, robotics and algorithmic.

The diversity of projects based on the principles of self-organization is a great source for future research activities and gave rise to numerous discussions during the workshop.

Dominik Egarter - being a student staff member in the mobile systems group since 2007 - and his colleague Christoph Unterrieder finished second at this year's European Analog Design Contest initiated by Texas Instruments. They were awarded 4.000 Euro for their experiment "Playing Music over Tesla" which exploits electromagnetic induction to generate sparks that play a piece of music. A total of 45 teams from 17 universities participated in the contest.

Lakeside Research Days 2010

The Research Days are an annual event concentrating on self-organizing systems, a highly interdisciplinary topic of particular importance for handling complex systems of tomorrow.
During this workshop, organized by Lakeside Labs in cooperation with the University of Klagenfurt, international experts devote themselves to a special topic in self-organization. This year, between 12 and 16 July, we focus on the question how self-organizing systems can be designed to apply the concept in dedicated applications.

The International Workshop on Self-Organizing Systems (IWSOS) serves as an annual multidisciplinary event dedicated to self-organization in networked systems. The fifth workshop of this series, to be held in Karlsruhe in February 2011, will feature research, challenge, and keynote talks on various aspects of self-organization in technological networks, including communication and computer networks, transportation networks, energy networks, and robot networks.

Full papers and challenge papers need to be submitted by 26 September 2010.

Successful funding activities

Since its foundation in 2007 the Institute of Networked and Embedded Systems (NES) has acquired 6.4 million EUR of third-party research funding, corresponding to a monthly rate of 50.000 EUR per professor. The grants and contracts include about 1.5 millions from the EU, 1 million from national funds, 1 million from industry, and 2.5 millions via the Lakeside Labs research cluster. By the end of this year NES is expected to provide 40 full-time jobs for ICT researchers, 75 % externally funded.

A tool to design self-organizing systems

Technical systems are becoming more and more complex. Self-organizing systems are a promising paradigm for handling such systems, however, there is no standard method for designing such a self-organizing control system. In the Lakeside Labs-project DEMESOS (Design Methods for Self-Organizing Systems) we examine different design approaches, among them also evolutionary design. Therefore, a first version of the tool FREVO (Framework for Evolutionary Design) was released. FREVO is an open-source framework developed in Java to help engineers and scientists in evolutionary design of self-organizing mechanisms.

Deutsches Museum Munich

Students of the course "Electricity and Masgnetism" (Univ.-Prof. Christian Bettstetter, Univ.-Ass. Helmut Adam) travelled to Munich to visit the "Deutsche Museum". Besides hearing and seeing interesting things regarding electricity, informatics, telecommunication and physics in general it was also a great chance for students to interact and get to know each other better.

BUZZflies – self-organizing slot synchronization on the iPhone

BUZZflies is an application that synchronizes several iPhones using periodic audio beeps. After synchronization is achieved, all involved phones simultaneously start to play a song. The algorithm is inspired from fireflies in Asia which synchronize their blinking for mating purposes. The app was created by a student of the Mobile Systems Group, Cam Lai Ngo, and is based on an implementation of the firefly synchronization for iPhone and Android by István Fehérvári. BUZZflies was supported by the Lakeside Labs project Triple-S.

You can check out and download this free app here.

Alexander Tyrrell, PhD

Alexander was awarded his doctorate degree with distinction in November 2009.  His PhD thesis "Firefly Synchronization in Wireless Networks" was written under the supervision of Professor Christian Bettstetter. Alexander's research is based on applying the synchronization principle of East-Asian fireflies to the context of wireless devices. The firefly synchronization is a promising approach for implementing an efficient and robust synchronization for wireless communication systems.

Best Student Paper Award from IEEE Vehicular Technology Society

The publication Multi-Hop-Aware Cooperative Relaying by Helmut Adam, Christian Bettstetter, and Sidi Mohammed Senouci received the Best Student Paper Award at the 69th IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC). Helmut Adam is working towards his dissertation in the area of cooperative relaying, a new wireless communication technique promising significant gains in throughput and energy-efficiency. The awarded paper proposes a concept to exploit routing information in the relay selection protocol. The work is an outcome of a bilateral project between the University of Klagenfurt and France Telecom's Orange Labs. VTC is the semiannual conference of the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society. VTC Spring 2009 took place in Barcelona from 26 to 29 April 2009, featuring 656 research papers, several panels and invited talks.

Within its series of round tables, the VDE/ITG Section 52.4 "Mobility in IP-based Networks" organized a one day workshop on the mentioned topic. It took place at Lakeside Labs GmbH in Klagenfurt, Austria, on 29 June 2009.

Please turn to this web page to find out more.

Lakeside Research Days

Lakeside Labs organized the "Lakeside Research Days" for the second time. The workshop took place from 13 to 17 July 2009 at the Lakeside Science & Technology Park in Klagenfurt. It focused on robustness in self-organizing networked systems. About 15 participants were involved in discussions, headed by renowned international scientists.

Please turn to this web page to find out more.

A fully updated, third edition of GSM: Architecture, Protocols, and Services written by Eberspächer, Vögel, Bettstetter, and Hartmann is out now. The book is both an introductory textbook for graduate students and a reference resource for telecommunications engineers and researchers.

Our Annual Report 2008 is available - learn more about what we were engaged in throughout the past year

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