Mobile communications and wireless networking technology have seen a thriving development in recent years. Driven by technological advancements as well as application demands, various classes of communication networks emerged. This includes sensor networks, ad hoc networks, and cellular networks, each of which class represents a solution to important chapters in the mobile and wireless communications challenge.

Currently, we observe that the fixed, mainly infrastructure based networks are complemented and enhanced with infrastructure-less (ad-hoc) networking structures to form novel communication networks. At the same time, users get more and more mobile and nomadic, they demand the ability to use applications anytime and anywhere, posing additional resource demands on the network while on the move and changing the nature of applications. Obviously, this gives rise to several challenging questions, which have to be solved first. Not only feasible applications and end-systems have to be developed but also smart network technology has to be devised.

The lecture addresses the above-outlined problem scope. The characteristics and principles underlying the problem are discussed in detail and practical solutions are presented. Hereby our focus is on the network layer, which is often regarded as the glue of communication systems. In addition to describing the state of the art in technology, we discuss actual research problems and learn about methodologies to approach such problems systematically.