John C.S. Lui said:

  1. Words of Warning: please note, these FYP projects are not for the faint hearted . If your goal is to have a relaxing time in your final year, so that you will graduate and then find a job later on, then please don't considered these FYPs. If you apply and get one of these FYP, most likely that you and I will have a miserable time together. On the other hand, if you love to learn new things, love to think, love to program (note: programming and system hacking are only applicable for the first two projects), then ``probably'' you may want to consider these FYP projects. Also, if your interests are in OS and networking, then you may want to consider the first two projects. If your interests are in mathematics, algorithm and theory, then you may want to consider the last two projects.
  2. Requirement: dedicated, hard-working, independent, willing to explore and learn new things, good system skills (e.g., OS and network).
  3. Available time slot for discussion: I believe in the open-door policy that any student can come to my office to ask question. Since I am in the office most of the time, you can stop by my office to inquire about the project, then we can talk about the final year projects in detail.
  4. For more detail, please visit my homepage at : http://www.cse.cuhk.edu.hk/~cslui/fyp2001.html, a perfect example of a circular pointer. :-)

LUI0101, LUI0102

Title: Internet Broadband Services I and II:
Supervisor: Dr. John C.S. Lui
Number of students: 4
Project Type: CE or CS
Prerequisite: high intellectual curiosity, love system building/hacking, creative and independent.
Project description: This project is an extension to our RMSS project and the multicast project. For the past two years, we have designed and implemented a RMSS server that can provide many interesting broadband services. For example, our RMSS server is now providing lecture-on-demand, video-on-demand and audio-on-demand services. Our multicast server is now providing simple multicast and dynamic multicast services for realtime TV programme viewing and client/server-side recording services. In this year FYP, the goals are to study/design/implement the following services:
  • Encryption via dynamic group key management: For example, we want to enable the video data encryption so that unauthorized users will not be able to view the multimedia information that we can sending/multicasting.
  • Reliable services: We need to device technique to reduce the bursty packet loss.
  • Video Proxy: How to use a local video proxy to reduce the client's start-up latency and at the same time, reduce the network bursty traffic.
  • Multicast video distribution problem : In particular, how can we efficiently distribute video sources to different RMSS servers.
  • Distributed RMSS+ : In particular, how can we design/implement network protocols and applications so that our RMSS server can be operated in a peer-to-peer mode.
  • Dynamic bandwidth allocator: Within a home or small office, we want to design a router with bandwidth guarantee, that is, allowing different devices to have certain bandwidth guarantee and at the same time, able to efficiently utilize the external bandwidth (e.g. those who are taking CEG4430 should know what I am talking about).
  • IPv6 support: for real-time and mobile applications.
Note that we may NOT have time to implement all these features. After you select this FYP, we will then decide what features are more important and then prioritize our work.

Detail explanation of this project will be given in my presentation. Also, workload among the two groups will be discussed and assigned after we have all the members in the project.

Again, this project aims to design, implement and evaluate the broadband service architectures at the server, router and at the client machine. If you want to take up this project, you need to have a strong background in operating systems (e.g., Linux and Window), networking and algorithms. Student will be able to learn about server implementation, network protocol design and as well as implementation. Note that this knowledge and skills are especially needed in the industry and beneficial if you want to pursuit system research work in graduate school.

References: For more information, please come to my office for discussion.

LUI0103, LUI0104

Title: Communication Network: A Mathematical Approach
(another name of the project: ``I HATE PROGRAMMING'' )
Supervisor: Dr. John C.S. Lui
Number of students: 2
Project Type: CS or CE
Prerequisite: high intellectual curiosity, good in mathematics, have interesting in algorithm, have passion to learn and think.
Project description: Do you like mathematics? Do you like to study algorithms more than system hacking and implementation? Do you prefer to think about mathematical problems instead of spending time debugging program? Do you want to learn more about the theoretical aspects of doing networking and system research? If yes, may be this project is for you. In this project, we will study some research papers and advanced textbooks which are related to mathematics and networking research. Some of the topics are:
  • Optimization issues of TCP-Vegas
  • Stochastic dynamic programming
  • Performance guarantees in communication networks
  • Network simulation
  • .....etc.
The format of this project is that every week, students will meet with me and we will go through (via a study group format) some of these facinating topics in mathematics and network research. After you learn the theory, some form of ``light'' programming is required to illustrate that you understand the concept.

To take on this project, you need to have a strong background in mathematics like probability, stochastic process, algorithm...etc.

References: For more information, please come to my office for discussion.