List of previous theses (lista delle tesi svolte)
Theses are available on the following topics:
- Evaluation of the energy consumption of wearable applications. Different versions of an application for wearable devices will be compared to identify the most energy-efficient solutions. Let’s consider an application where an image is classified using ML techniques. What are the possible benefits in terms of energy consumption introduced by offloading computation on an external edge or cloud server? The thesis work will include the development of software artifacts, an experimental evaluation, and the analysis of results. The student will learn how to design energy-efficient applications.
- Evaluation of the energy consumption of communication schemes and protocols. The goal of the thesis is to evaluate how the communication scheme and the protocol used by an Internet-of-Things device influence its energy consumption. Some protocols and/or network conditions allow the wireless interface to stay longer in low power states. The thesis work will include the development of software artifacts, an experimental evaluation, and the analysis of results. The student will learn how to design energy-efficient communication schemes and how network conditions impact energy consumption.
- Internet measurements. Despite being considered something that “just works”, like the electricity in our houses, the Internet as a large-scale system still includes some aspects that deserve investigation. Internet measurements, like the ones produced by RIPE Atlas, provide some information about the topology and the performance of such a large system. This can be useful for instance to detect disconnections of large portions of the network, as it happens sometimes under dictatorship regimes, or in case of exceptional events, like the increased traffic due to the pandemic. Also the connection between the Internet infrastructure (routers, IXPs, POPs) and geographic areas is relevant: for instance, to check that data do not cross the boundaries of a region (as mandated by some EU regulations about personal information). The student will learn how to collect information on the Internet as a large system, what are its dynamics, and what is the relationship between the Internet and geography.