MEng Mechatronic Engineering with Industrial Experience / Course details

Introduction to Network Protocol Stacks. General requirements, resource sharing, multiplexing, layered network architecture, program interfacing. ISO/OSI reference model, 5-layer model.

Direct Link Networks. System properties of physical media. Bandwidth, latency, trip-time concepts and “keeping the pipe” full. Nodes and links, link encoding, data frame protocols and error protection. Reliable transmissions and use of automatic repeat request protocols and sliding window algorithm.

Local Area Networks. Ethernet (IEEE 802.3), Wireless LAN (IEEE 802.11, IEEE 802.15), physical structures, access protocol and operational properties.

Packet Switching. Reliable vs. unreliable connections, datagrams, network switching, virtual circuits, store-and-forward concepts. LAN switches, routing algorithms. Unicast, multicast and broadcast concepts.

Internetworking. The Internet Protocol (IPv4) – service model, datagrams, addressing, host configuration and error reporting. Routing algorithms (distance vector, link state) and routing metrics. Concepts of sub-netting and classless routing.

End-to-End Protocols. Unreliable (UDP) and reliable (TCP) protocols, segment formats, connection establishment and termination, sliding window and adaptive retransmission.

Domain Naming and Hierarchies. The Domain Name System.

Embedded Systems Networks. Specific requirements and design issues of embedded systems networks: topologies, protocols, robustness, error handling. Synchronous and asynchronous protocols. Examples of embedded systems networks: I2C, and SPI

Coding of digital data. Hamming codes, parity, CRC and IP checksums.

Network Security. Cryptographic algorithms: symmetric key, public key, message digest. Security services: privacy, authentication, integrity control, non-repudiation. 

Data networking is the topic of how electronic devices communicate. It underpins everything from microcontrollers talking to sensors to a PC talking to a server on the other side of the world.  Different communications applications have different goals and requirements but use similar principles in their hardware, logic circuits, protocols, and software.

ILO 1: Describe and analyse Application Layer protocols and schemes, including the DNS.

ILO 2: Calculate selected protocol checksums, including, but not limited to CRC and 1s complement checksums, and Hamming coding schemes.

ILO 3: Describe the operation of TCP/IP and selected embedded systems protocols.

ILO 4: Embedded system protocols.

ILO 5: Calculate quantities associated with selected TCP/IP protocols, including, but not limited to, congestion and data flow rates.

ILO 6: Describe and analyse simple packet-switched networks and the operation of selected routing algorithms.

ILO 7: Apply selected security protocols to example networks and calculate values of shared, secret and public keys.

ILO 8: Calculate properties of wired and wireless networks, including, but not limited to, data rates, subnet addresses, and transmission and propagation times.

Coursework:

Implement a simple wired protocol using an ARM-based microcontroller over an I2C bus.

Coursework forms 20% of the unit assessment

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1. James F. Kurose & Keith W. Ross, Computer Networking: A Top Down Approach, International edition, Pearson
2. William Stallings, Data and Computer Communications, International Edition, Prentice Hall