Determining User Location in an Indoor Wireless

The vision of pervasive ubiquitous computing where users have network access anytime, anywhere, is being enabled by deployments of high-speed wireless networks in common places of congregation such as airports, malls, hotels, parks, arenas, and so on. My research interests span several aspects of implementing and deploying such Public-Area Wireless Networks (PAWNs) and has focused on providing solutions to key challenges that enable their widespread deployment – security, authentication, network capacity planning, and, more recently, QoS provisioning. A key challenge differentiating PAWNs from private network deployments (e.g., in corporate offices and homes) is the protection of the network against unknown, and potentially malicious users, and the protection of all user communication traffic. As PAWNs become more widely deployed and used, it is crucial to consider techniques that effectively handle the dynamically varying user load without compromising network performance. Further, as the use of PAWNs spreads beyond simple data transfer to dataand performance intensive multimedia applications, the need to address quality of service issues, such as bandwidth management and enhanced service provisioning, is also increasingly important. My doctoral research has addressed these issues through the development of deployable software systems that provide a service and the implementation of novel algorithms. In solving these problems, I have also been able to provide an overarching theme of incorporating mobile-user location in the network layer as a novel way to benefit both the wireless network and its users.