Courses taught by MANTA
The courses taught by our group span over different aspects of networking, ranging from basic topics like computer network fundamentals to advanced topics that include wireless networks, vehicular networks, network modeling and simulation, software defined radios, and many more. Below you find a list of such courses together with a description of the content and the link to the official course material.
Computer Networks (Reti) / Fundamentals of Communications: Networking
Type: Bachelor
Credits: 6
Academic years:
2024/2025 (ICE English)
2023/2024 (ICE English)
2022/2023
2021/2022
2020/2021
2019/2020
The course covers the fundamentals of computer networks. It first starts by describing the layered architecture of computer networks (ISO/OSI and TCP/IP stacks) describing the advantages of layering and the duties of the layers. The course then digs into the details of the application, transport, network, and data-link layers. Students learn, among other things, the basics of application layer protocols such as HTTP and STMP as well as the DNS service, the fundamentals of congestion control in TPC in the transport layer, IP addressing and Internet routing, and medium access control techniques.
Next Generation Networks
Type: Master
Credits: 6
The course mainly tackles the concepts of softwarization in networks. In particular, the course gives an overview of classic networking where both the control plane and the data plane are distributed. It then introduces the concept of Software Defined Networking (SDN) where the control plane is instead centralized, describing why such an approach can be beneficial in future networks. It also introduces some protocols and technologies that can be used for virtualization describing them together with their limitations (e.g., VLAN, VPN, and VXLAN (protocols), virtual machines, vagrant, and docker (technologies)). The course then tackles Software Defined Radio (SDR) systems, giving first an overview on the topic and the technologies and then digging into practical examples including demodulating FM radio and WiFi (IEEE 802.11a/g/p). The course finally enters the topic of vehicular networks describing the benefits communication could bring to transportations in terms of safety and efficiency, and then delve into the challenges of wireless communications in the vehicular environment. Most of the topics are backed up by hands-on lab showing how the concepts learned in lectures can be put into practice.
Networking I
Type: Master
Credits: 9
Academic years:
2022/2023
The course tackles different advanced aspects of networks. The course starts with an overview on network design from both theoretical and practical perspectives. It then digs into challenges and solutions of using TPC over wireless and large bandwidth-delay product networks. The course provides then an introductory but pretty detailed overview of the WiFi standard, including some details of the IEEE 802.11a/b/g physical and medium access control layer and some advanced concepts such as MIMO systems (beamforming and spatial streams), which are fundamental features of modern WiFi standards including IEEE 802.11ac/ad/ax/be. With respect to WiFi the course also describes, from a high level perspective, what are its security mechanisms, including WEP and WPA/WPA2/WPA3 (enterprise and personal). Finally, the course is completed by seminars on network design (by TIM) and on mmWave indoor localization techniques.
Simulation and performance evaluation
Type: Master
Credits: 6
Through lectures, homeworks, and the development of a final project, at the end of this course the student will be able to correctly set up the characterization of a system through simulations, avoiding the most typical pitfalls - structure the elements of a simulator - empirically analyze a dataset, also using confidence and prediction intervals - fit statistical models to data - carry out and analyze the outcome of Monte-Carlo simulations - build and employ discrete-time simulators - analyze recent topics in the field of complex system simulation.