Terminodes: Toward Self-organized Mobile Ad Hoc Wide Area Networks

This document presents a research agenda in the area of communication systems. It is meant to be the proposal of the Communication Systems Division of EPFL and its Consortium to the National Center of Competence in Research (NCCR) of the Swiss National Fund. This proposal is also called MICS (Mobile Information and Communication Systems). The expected (and desirable) characteristics of the proposed program are as follows: 1. Look further into the future than the mobile communication industry 2. Have a positive impact on civilization and address challenging societal and business issues 3. Be broad enough to encompass the research interest of all labs of the Communication Division of EPFL and of all the partners of the Consortium 4. At the same time, be focused enough to foster synergy within the Division and within the Consortium. 1 Overall Presentation In conventional wireless personal communication systems (AMPS, GSM, UMTS,...), the terminals communicate over the air interface with so-called base stations. The base stations are in fact the gateway between wireless terminals and the wireline backbone. This solution is SSC Technical Report No. SSC/1999/022; this document was slightly modi ed on September 30, 1999