The M.Sc. in Internet and Multimedia Engineering is a two-year program. It consists of 120 CFUs (credito formativo universitario; one CFU is equivalent to one ECTS in the EU nomenclature) approximately distributed as 60 CFUs per year. It includes courses on telecommunication systems and networks, signal processing, applied electromagnetics, and other ICT disciplines. The program will be concluded with the defence of an M.Sc. thesis.
In particular, the following disciplines are included within the courses of the M.Sc. program. Most of them are associated with research laboratories currently active at the University of Genoa:
1st year
Computer Graphics
Introduction to Computer Graphics; Basic 2D algorithms for drawing lines and circles, clipping; 2D and 3D geometrical transformations; Projections; Representing Curves and Surfaces; Visible surface determination; Illumination and shading, shadows, Texture Mapping; Recursive Ray Tracing and Radiosity; The OpenGL graphic library
Digital Communications
General concepts: analog and digital messages. Scheme of a digital communication system. Digital transmission over baseband channels: PAM. Inter-symbol interference: Nyquist criterion. PAM power spectrum. Main line codes and their spectra. PAM optimum receivers.
Bit and frame synchronization: main techniques.
Digital transmission over bandpass channels: OOK, ASK, FSK, CPFSK, PSK and their power spectra.
Coherent reception for binary bandpass systems: optimal receivers for OOK, FSK, PRK. Non-coherent OOK, FSK, DPSK receivers: performance evaluation. Bandpass M-ary QAM, APK and PSK receivers, performance evaluation.
Basics of information theory. Channel coding, Shannon's fundamental theorem. Parity check codes, cyclic codes, convolutional codes.
Mathematical Methods and Operations Research
Mod. 1: Mathematical Methods
The course focuses on three main subjects. First, optimization problems over graphs are introduced, such as the minimum spanning tree and the shortest path problems, toghether with their main solution algorithms. Then, dynamic programming is investigated as a tool for dynamic optimization both in deterministic and uncertain environments. Lastly, basic notions about linear partial differential equations are given, together with many examples of applications and analytical solution methods.
Mod. 2: Operations Research
The goal of the Operations Research module is to make the student aware of basic notions of optimization and mathematical programming. The main topics are the following: linear programing, gradient method, Newton-Raphson method, conjugate gradient method, interior-point methods, methods based on penalization, exact penalization, least squares, LQ optimal control, Kalman filtering.
Antennas and Electromagnetic Propagation
The course provides knowledge and skills concerning antennas and guided electromagnetic propagation, with reference to both their working principles and their use in different applicative fields. The following main topics will be addressed.
Mod. 1: Antennas
Fundamentals of electromagnetic radiation and antenna parameters. Linear antennas, aperture antennas, reflector antennas, printed antennas. Antenna Arrays. MIMO systems for multimedia communications. Smart and reconfigurable antennas. Wide band antennas for high–speed internet links. Antenna systems for industrial, civil and biomedical applications.
Mod. 2: Electromagnetic Propagation
Fundamentals of guided propagation. Longitudinal-transverse decompositions of Maxwell's equations, TEM, TE, TM modes, rectangular waveguides, higher TE and TM modes, operating bandwidth, power transfer an attenuation, group velocity in waveguides, reflection model of waveguide propagation, dielectric slab guides. Oblique incidence and Snel's laws, Zenneck surface wave, surface plasmons. Plasmonic waveguides, plasmonic and oscillatory modes, MDM and DMD configurations. RFID technology, active and passive RFID tags, plasmonic RFID.
Mobile Communications
Mod. 1: Physical layer models and techniques for software radio
Mathematical models for radio transmission: (20) Radio Channel models; Free space model; Probabilistic rain model; Multipath time-variant general statistical model (Time variant pulse response, First order channel models (Fading (Rayleigh, Rice, Nagakami)); Second order models.
Radio transmission system models: Frequency selectivity and temporal fading; Slow and fast fading; Diversity transmission (frequency, time, space); Wideband transmissions as frequency selective channels; Channel models and rake receivers.
Wideband Digital radio transmission: systems and techniques (20): Multiple Access techniques overview; Wideband modulations: Spread Spectrum: General concepts, Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum and CDMA, Orthogonal Frequency Division Modulation (OFDM).
Software and Cognitive Radio (10) : Software radio architectures;. from software to cognitive radio
Mod. 2: Pervasive communication and Context Awareness
The Internet society is based on technological solution for continuative and pervasive connection of persons and objects (IoT). In the course, different radio technologies are investigated and compared able to guarantee such global connection, including terrestrial and satellite solutions. Radio coverage strategies will be examined by comparing different cell planning methodologies. Terrestrial mobile telephone standards like GSM/GPRS, WCDMA and LTE will be examined and compared with satellite technologies like Globalstar and Iridium. The smartphone platform will be considered as a multi-standard platform able to connect persons and things beyond the telephone network, including Wifi, Bluetooth, RFID, BLE, NFC. The added value represented by position estimation of terminal, persons and things will be considered with reference to applications for logistics, transportation and health. In such view, methodologies based on terrestrial radio fingerprinting and satellite-based global systems (GPS/Galileo/Egnos) will be introduced.
Internet Technologies: Architectures and Protocols
Review of the Internet Architecture and Protocols: IPv4 review (management of IP addresses); IP routing algorithms and protocols review; Multicast; IPv6; UDP/TCP; Flow and congestion control in packet networks; Application layer.
Wireless Networks Architectures and Protocols: Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11); Bluetooth (IEEE 802.15.1).
Quality of Service (QoS) in IP Networks: Introduction to QoS in IP networks; Differentiated Services and Integrated Services IETF Architectures; ReSerVation Protocol (RSVP); Multi Protocol Label Switching (MPLS).
Multimedia services over the Internet: Voice and Video over IP; Real Time Protocol (RTP) and Session Description Protocol (SDP).
Emerging topics: Energy Efficient Networking, Network Functions Virtualization (NFV).
2nd year
Array Signal Processing
Introduction to the array signal processing. Aims, methods, and applications. Acoustic signals. Basics of underwater acoustics and active sonar systems. Need for space-time processing. Data-independent array signal processing. Beamforming as a spatial filter. Linear and planar arrays. Beam pattern. Array gain and directivity index. Imaging-oriented digital beamforming: techniques and systems. Near-field and wide-band aspects. Beamforming implementations: time-domain and frequency-domain. 3-D imaging. Computational burden estimation. Superdirective beamforming and synthesis of a filter-and-sum beamformer. Acoustic imaging systems deploying arrays. Elements of data-dependent array signal processing.
Cognitive Telecommunications Systems
Introduction; Signal Processing and Cognitive Systems (30) : Data fusion architectural models: (JDL; Cognitive Functional; Probabilistic Graphical M.) Data fusion levels and PGM based techniques: Dynamic Bayesian Networks; State estimation (Kalman filter, EKF, Particle Filter); machine learning (Self Organizing Maps, probability models estimation, Switching models); Situation Awareness and Threat Assessment: Markov Jump and Rao Blackwellized filters) ; Temporal and Spatial alignment.
Towards Cognitive refinement: Bio-inspired interaction analysis models. (10): Damasio model; Autobiographical memories; Homeostasis based situation modeling ; Analysis, prediction of abnormal situations. Case studies (10) Smart spaces: First person vision; Safety and security; Intelligent transportations; Cognitive radio.
Image processing and recognition
Mod. 1: Image and pattern classification
In this course several statistical pattern recognition techniques are presented and their application to images from real domains are discussed:
Decision Theory; Supervised Probability Density Estimate; Feature Reduction; Linear and Nonlinear Classifiers (k-nn, SVMs, NNs); Error Probability of Supervised Classifiers; Unsupervised Classifiers (Clustering); Fuzzy Classifiers; Contextual image classification.
Mod. 2: Digital Image Processing
In this course the basic techniques of digital signal and image processing are presented and their application to signals and images from real domains are discussed:
Digital Image Representation and Color Spaces; Image Filtering (linear and non-linear); Edge Detection; Image Segmentation; Texture Analysis; Mathematical Morphology; Moments and Hough Transform; Adaptive Processing, Multiscale, Data Fusion.
Quality of Service and Performance Evaluation
Mod. 1: Quality of Service over Heterogeneous Networks
Definition of QoS, SLA (Service Level Agreement) and SLS (Service Level Specification); Definition of heterogeneity; QoS-oriented technologies: ATM, MPLS, IPv4, IPv6, user flow and traffic class identification; Integrated Services, Differentiated Services and DSCP Assignation, advantages and drawbacks; Network control issues versus time: Traffic Identification, Traffic Shaping, introduction to Scheduling, CAC (Feasibility Region, Equivalent Bandwidth, Bandwidth Reservation), QoS Routing; QoS over Heterogeneous Networks: concepts and problems, Horizontal and Vertical QoS Mapping, QoS Architectures, QoS Gateway, Relay Node and Relay Layer; Software Defined Networking (SDN): introduction and aim, architecture, OpenFlow and Flow Table, conclusions and research activities; Delay Tolerant Networking (DTN): introduction and aim, architecture, Bundle Layer, CLA, conclusions and research activities.
Mod. 2: Network Performance Evaluation
Methods of network performance evaluation: analytical models, simulation, experimental measurements; Packet-level and flow-level models; Elementary queueing theory: elements of a queue, statistics of input and service, general results on infinite- and finite-buffer queues, Little’s Theorem, Kendall’s notation; Markovian queues: Poisson arrivals, exponential distribution, stationary distribution of general birth-death systems; M/M/1, M/M/1/K, M/M/m/m, M/M/m; Discrete- and continuous-time Markov Chains; M/G/1 and Pollaczek-Kinchin formula; Pareto distribution; M/G/1 with vacations; priority queueing; Networks of queues: Jackson networks, independence hypothesis, Kleinrock’s delay formula.
Internet Applications
Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP); Domain Name System (DNS); Remote Login: Telnet and ssh; File Transfer: FTP and TFTP; Electronic Mail: SMTP, POP, and IMAP; Network Management: SNMP; Web and HTTP protocol, cookies, Web caching, GET; Web Services and REST; Private Networks, Virtual Private Networks, and Network Address Translation; Principles of Cloud Computing; App Programming and Development.
Remote Sensing and Setellite Images
In this course basic concepts of active and passive remote sensing and satellite image formation and processing are discussed
Mod. 1: Remote sensing
Fundamentals of remote sensing, Passive remote sensing in the optical, microwaves, and IR frequency bands. Active remote sensing: radar imaging, Interferometry
Mod. 2: Satellite images
Instrumentation for remote sensing, Space missions for Earth observation and their applications, Satellite image display, modelling, and filtering, Automatic detection of changes in multitemporal satellite images, Geo/Bio-physical parameter estimation
Cyber Security
General introduction: Main issues (2); Security Architecture for ISO (X.800).
Security in Telecommunication Networks: Confidentiality: Cryptography; General characterization; Symmetric Cipher Mechanisms (2); Public key cryptography - Rivest, Shamir, Adleman (RSA) (6); Data integrity and electronic signature; Security protocols.
Computer System Security: Intrusions; Intrusion detection; Password management; Malicious Software; Firewalls.
Secure Programming: Buffer overflows; Format string vulnerabilities.
Web Security: Security on the client side; Security on the server side.
Access Control: Discretionary vs Mandatory Access Control; Access control matrix model; Role-Based Access Control (RBAC); Administrative Role-Based Access Control (ARBAC); Bell-LaPadula, Harrison-Ruzzo-Ullman and Chinese Wall models.