Internet Technology and Architecture (ITA)

Royal Institute of Technology (KTH)

The specialisation Communication Systems Design focuses on how to design, build, integrate and operate communication applications, services and networks in innovative ways. The core of the specialisation is the Communication System Design course. The course implements problem based learning driven by projects. By solving "real-world" problems in interdisciplinary project teams, students learn advanced technology issues and at the same time become aware of many other aspects than technical which are relevant to problem solving, such as design, teamwork, and project management. The project topics are renewed yearly according to inputs from the industry, and cover areas such as software defined networking, network function virtualisation, low latency geo-distributed systems, data center storage, environmental monitoring, and internet of things. In addition, the specialisation offers related theoretical and system design courses to strengthen the in-depth knowledge of the students in their selected focus area.

Specialisation courses:

• Communication system design (compulsory project course)
• Network management
• Network analytics
• Building networked system security
• Software defined networking
• Network services and Internet based applications
• Internet security and privacy

Programme coordinator: Viktoria Fodor, vjfodor@kth.se

Viktoria Fodor received her MSc and PhD degrees in computer engineering from the Budapest University of Technology and Economics. In 1999 she joined KTH, Royal Institute of Technology, where she now acts as assistant professor in the Laboratory for Communication Networks and coordinator of the local EIT Digital Master School programme ITA. Over the years she supervised several master thesis projects and 2 PhD theses. She participated in several European and Swedish research projects. Her current research interests include multimedia and peer-to-peer communication, sensor network and cognitive radio network protocol design and performance analysis.

Slimane Ben Slimane received his BSc degree in electrical engineering from the University of Quebec in Trois-Rivières, Quebec, Canada in 1985, his M.Sc. degree from Concordia University, Montreal, Canada, in 1988, and his PhD degree also from Concordia University in 1994. In October 1995, he joined the Department of Signals, Sensors, and Systems at KTH Royal Institute Technology as an Assistant Professor. Since then he has been involved in teaching modern radio communications and carrying out research projects. He is presently an associate professor in the area of radio communication. Over the years he supervised several master thesis projects and 5 PhD students. His research interest is in the area of wireless communications with special emphasis on digital communication techniques for fading channels, channel coding, access methods, cooperative communications, energy efficiency, and cognitive radio.

Technical university of Berlin (TUB)

The Internet is a social phenomenon that has changed, and continues to change, how humans communicate. It has redefined expectations about how interactions between humans, computers and humans, and between computers function. Without question, almost all major industrial sectors take advantage of the Internet. This includes software companies such as Microsoft, Google, and SAP, as well as more traditional manufacturing companies (including the automotive industry), service providers (including banks and insurance companies), as well as the entertainment industry. Therefore we need an in depth understanding of the technology underlying the Internet as well as on developing solutions for improving the current network to address challenges such as mobility, quality of experience, security, and reliability.

Specialisation courses:

Students can choose electives (listed under the first year) for 24 ECTS. Topics include:

• Advanced Networking
• Internet Security
• Internet Measurement
• Internet Routing
• Sensor networks
• Broadband networks
• Advanced OS
• Operation of complex IT infrastructures
• Advanced Databases
• Resource Management
• Distributed Modeling and Algorithms

Programme coordinator: Florian Tschorsch, florian.tschorsch@tu-berlin.de

Florian Tschorsch is assistant professor at the Technical University of Berlin and the Einstein Center Digital Future (ECDF), where he heads the Distributed Security Infrastructures group since April 2017. His research interests comprise, among others, anonymous Internet communication and blockchain technologies. Here, the main focus is on the interplay of overlay networks and the protocol stack below. In particular, security, privacy, and performance aspects of a distributed architecture take a key role in his work.

The Exit ‘Internet of Things’ at IMT is not eligible for 2018 applications.

Programme coordinator: Laurent Toutain: Laurent.Toutain@telecom-bretagne.eu

Internet connectivity has been widely deployed in the last decade and is now present not only in every house and office, but also in many personal, mobile communication and entertainment devices. However, with the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) and the development of Machine-to-Machine communications the number of interconnected devices is expected to explode and to reach many billions by the end of the decade. Such evolution of the Internet opens the way to imagining a large panel of new services, but also raises several technical hurdles that have to be addressed: energy issues both in the terminal side and in the infrastructure; scalability issues for traffic management, QoS management, routing, addressing; heterogeneity of technologies; radio spectrum management (as many of such devices will be wirelessly connected to the network). Furthermore, new business models should be envisioned to foster the development of innovative services.

Specialisation courses:

• Distributed Architectures:

1. Cloud computing
2. Big data

• Innovative Networks and Services:

1. IPv6 for IoT
2. SDN
3. Operated Network Services
4. Security for IoT

• Wireless and mobile networks: architectures and protocols:

1. Data Transmission in Mobile Networks
2. Multiplexing in radio network (incl LPWAN)
3. LTE and 5G networks

• Wireless Sensor and Actuator Networks:

1. Arduino programming and REST architecture
2. Operating systems for IoT
3. IoT protocols
4. M2M applications

• Research Seminar and Innovation project
• Innovation & Entrepreneurship Studies

Laurent Toutain received his PhD in Computer Science from Le Havre University in 1991 and received is “Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches” in 2013 from Rennes 1 university. He is currently working as an Associate Professor at IMT-Atlantique, Rennes, in the Networks, Security and Multimedia (RSM) Department. His main research topics are focused on Internet Architecture and protocols. He worked for many years in IPv6 area is on the transition mechanism and auto-configuration. He is now working on the Internet of Things and the adaptation of the Internet architecture to constrained devices. He is active on standardisation, mainly at IETF, to promote innovative architectures for IoT. He is also working in Low Power Wide Area networks. He is the author of several reference books on networking translated in several languages. He is also co-founder of the Acklio company focusing on IoT communications.

University of Trento offers a specialisation track of the EIT core master on Internet Technology and Architecture focused on “Software Defined Networking”. The objective of the track is to offer a complete and effective vision of the technologies for the Future Internet, focusing on virtualization and programmability of the networking infrastructure - a subject that attracts unprecedented interest in the framework of network management (e.g. for ISPs) as well as of future wireless networks (5G). The topic answers to a relevant demand for trained engineers and (freelance) professionals in enabling the Future Internet and Services, and deeply integrates the interest of industry, academia and research centers working on the networking infrastructure.

Indeed, several efforts at national and international level and EU initiatives involve the research ecosystem of Trento in studying solutions to enable the Future Internet. A specific asset, also available to EIT Digital ITA students, is a regional wireless / optical testbed, which covers all the Province of Trento with hundreds of kilometers of fibers and hotspots, as well as local testbeds (i.e. indoor/outdoor wireless mesh networking testbed, software-defined radio lab platform) for development of real internet prototypes and services - with the possibility of involving directly the citizens of the province.

Specialisation mandatory courses:

• Radar and 5G Systems, 9 ECTS
• Project course on “Software Defined Networking”, 3 ECTS

Specialization elective courses (12 ECTS):

• Project course on “Software for Mobile”, 3 / 6 ECTS
• Design of Networks and Communication Systems, 6 ECTS
• Network Modeling and Design, 6 ECTS
• Wireless Networks, 6 ECTS
• Data Hiding 6 ECTS
• Digital Signal Processing 9 ECTS

Fabrizio Granelli is an associate professor at the Dept. of Information Engineering and Computer Science (DISI) of the University of Trento (Italy) and Director of Online Content at IEEE Communications Society. He was IEEE ComSoc distinguished lecturer in 2012-15 and Delegate for Education of DISI in 2015-17. His main research activities are in the field of networking, with particular reference to wireless networks (performance optimization, ad-hoc networks modeling), cognitive networks/radios, cross-layer design and green networking. He is the author of more than 200 papers, guest-editor in relevant international journals (ACM/Kluwer Mobile Networks and Applications Journal, ACM TOMACS, JSAC, IEEE Communications Magazine) and visiting professor at the State University of Campinas and at The University of Tokyo. He is the former Chair of the IEEE Communication Systems Integration and Modeling Technical Committee and he was chair or co-chair of several top-level international events, like IEEE Globecom Symposium TPC Co-Chair on "Performance Modeling, QoS and Reliability" from 2007 to 2009 and in 2012.

Technical University of Madrid (UPM)

To be innovative and entrepreneurial in modern networks, it is necessary to know the main technological challenges that lay behind them. This is what is offered in this highly-technical specialisation, that balances and complements the more business-related first year. With this second-year programme, students will grasp the ideas behind these four crucial technological areas which are, all of them, at the core of modern mobile and ubiquitous systems:

• Wireless communications: two courses (WICOM and SPTC) will give the student a view on the current wireless technologies used in the latest generations of mobile systems, and also an introduction to research and future trends of wireless technologies.
• Communication electronics: there are two courses (ADA and ES) that guide the student through the advanced digital architectures that are related to embedded systems and their associated methodologies.
• Telematics: one course (USNS) deals with networks and services offered by wireless sensor networks, including networking issues as well as software architectures and applications.
• Signal processing: in order to transmit audio and video information through the network, appropriate processing is needed. There is a course of the specialisation (AVSP) that is dedicated to these processing techniques.

Besides these four areas, there are two with a more horizontal nature:

• A set of advanced research seminars (ARS_I) which gives the opportunity of listening, first-hand from international experts, to interesting talks on different issues related to the technological areas of this specialisation.
• The part of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship minor that belongs to the second year of the programme (I&E Thesis).

To fulfil this curriculum, students have to take 5 out of the following set of seven courses:

• Wireless communications - WICOM (5 ECTS, fall)
• Advanced digital architectures – ADA (5 ECTS, fall)
• Audio and video signal processing – AVSP (5 ECTS, fall)
• Ubiquitous and secure networks and services – USNS (5 ECTS, fall)
• Advanced research seminars I – ARS_I (5 ECTS, fall)
• Signal processing techniques for communications - SPTC (5 ECTS, spring)
• Embedded systems – ES (5 ECTS, spring)

Besides, there are two theses to be completed during this second year, both of them mandatory:

• Innovation and Entrepreneurship thesis (6 ECTS, fall)
• Final Degree Project thesis (30 ECTS, mainly spring)

Programme coordinator: Ana Belén García Hernando

Dr Ana Belén García Hernando received her MSc and PhD degrees in Telecommunication Engineering (telematics) from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), Madrid, Spain, in 1998 and 2002, respectively. She is currently an Associate Professor at the Department of Telematic and Electronic Engineering (DTE) of the same University, where she lectures, among others, on the field of Mobile Computing and Networking. Her research interests include mobile assisted learning, modern networking technologies and wireless sensor and actuator networks. Currently she is the deputy director for Research and Doctorate of the School of Telecommunications and Systems Engineering of the UPM (ETSIST-UPM).

Sorbonne University (SU)

Sorbonne University offers a specialisation in user-centric networking with courses in network structure and dynamics, mobile and pervasive networks, network metrology, and research methodology. The specialisation offers a complete and consistent vision of networking architectures and technologies both in wired and wireless/mobile environments, at access and core networks.

User-Centric Networking aims to provide a rigorous theoretical knowledge and understanding of current issues as well as detailed practical experience of advanced networking technologies and architectures. The objective is to respond to the strong industry demand of high level network engineers and specialists. The specialisation in essence is thought out to make the students aware of the requirements, constraints, and evolutions that the networking industry has to cope with ; it naturally trains them to be destined for a high level industrial career, particularly in the field of research and innovation.

Specialisation courses:

• Networks: Structure & Dynamics
• Smart Mobility Systems
• Autonomic Networks
• Internet Measurement
• Methodology for Research in Networking

Elective courses:

• Content Networks
• Traffic Engineering and Quality of Service
• Internet Governance
• Provider Networks and Data-Centers
• Network Design and Modeling

Dr Prométhée Spathis is the coordinator of the Internet Technology Architecture major. He is an associate professor at Sorbonne University-UPMC in the Networkand Performance Analysis group. He received both MSc (1998) and his PhD in Computer (2003) Science from UPMC. Over the years, Dr Spathis has supervised over 20 Master’s Thesis and 4 Doctor of Science Thesis. He has been involved in European projects (European Commission’s 6th and 7th Framework Programmes) and coordination actions, as well as many national research projects. He has also participated to several French scientific-technological cooperation programmes with South America. He is currently co-advising two PhD students in the research areas of content-based architectures and content dissemination in vehicular networks. Prométhée Spathis is also the programme director for a Master Programme implemented in Vietnam.