Assessment Details and Submission Guidelines
School SITE
Course Name Bachelor of Engineering (Telecommunication)
Unit Code BE203
Unit Title Telecommunication System Engineering
Assessment Author Dr. Amoakoh Gyasi-Agyei
Assessment Type Written, Individual Work
Assessment Title Assignment 1 (Individual Work)
Unit Learning Outcomes covered in this assessment a-e
Weight 10%
Total Marks 80
Word/page limit Maximum 2000 words (8 A4 pages)
Release Date Week 3
Due Date Week 6 (11 pm on Wednesday)
Submission Guidelines • All work must be submitted on Moodle by the due date along with a completed Assignment Cover Page.
• The assignment must be in MS Word format, 1.5 spacing, 11-pt Calibri (Body) font and 2 cm margins on all four sides of your page with appropriate section headings.
• Reference sources must be cited in the text of the report, and listed appropriately at the end in a reference list using APA or IEEE referencing style for School of Business and School of Information Technology and Engineering respectively.
Extension • If an extension of time to submit work is required, a Special Consideration Application must be submitted directly to the School's Administration Officer, in Melbourne on Level 6 or in Sydney on Level 7. You must submit this application three working days prior to the due date of the assignment. Further information is available at:
http://www.mit.edu.au/about-mit/institute-publications/policies-procedures-andguidelines/specialconsiderationdeferment
Academic
Misconduct
• Academic Misconduct is a serious offence. Depending on the seriousness of the case, penalties can vary from a written warning or zero marks to exclusion from the course or rescinding the degree. Students should make themselves familiar with the full policy and procedure available at: http://www.mit.edu.au/about-mit/institutepublications/policies-procedures-and-guidelines/Plagiarism-Academic-
Misconduct-Policy-Procedure. For further information, please refer to the Academic Integrity Section in your Unit Description.
Instruction:
The above table is mean for your guide and should not be part of your submission. Download the assignment cover page on Moodle, complete it and make it the cover page of your submission.
Marking Criteria
The following shall be used to grade your submission.
Content Knowledge
(Marks: 60% ) Ability to
Communicate
(Marks: 20%) Academic Discourse
Skills (Marks: 10%) Basic Language
Skills (Marks: 10%)
5 Student demonstrates outstanding understanding and content knowledge beyond the scope required by the assignment task. The system design methodology is technically sound. The Lecturer understands the content completely; if there are any mistakes they do not interfere with the meaning.
Referencing style is 100% in accordance with the IEEE standards. There is a clear logical argument, with the points well ordered and fully supported. It
responds
appropriately to the question asked. Enough relevant literature is cited to support work. Pleasingly broad range of sentence structure and vocabulary is used. Telecommunication terminology is used correctly.
4 Student demonstrates sound basic knowledge and understanding of the relevant subject matter. The system design methodology is technically fairly sound. Lecturer understands the content, although some sections need to be read more than once. The answer responds more or less to the question asked. The use of supporting evidence, illustration and argument is relevant but not necessarily sufficient. There is a good range of sentence structure and terminology with a number of minor errors in word formation or spelling.
3 Student exhibits adequate basic knowledge of the topic area. Lecturer mostly understands the content, despite occasional difficulty. A point of view is presented, but it is not always clear. Attempts to include supporting evidence, illustration or argument are made. While there are noticeable language errors, these do not significantly interfere with the lecturer understanding the content.
2 The student’s apparent knowledge and understanding of relevant content is limited. Lecturer has
difficulty understanding the content, although there are signs of meaning breaking through. The argument does not progress smoothly. Main points and supporting material are not clearly distinguished from each other. The range of steps expressed correctly
is limited. Errors in terminology, grammar, word choice, word formation and spelling cause difficulty for the marker.
1 Student shows little evidence of knowing the relevant content. The marker can hardly understand the content of the submitted report. The ideas or facts presented have little apparent relation to each other or to the question asked. Errors in sentence structure, terminology, word choice, word forms and spelling predominate and prevent communication.
0 1. The answer is copied or substantially copied from materials or other sources (plagiarism).
2. No relevant attempt has been made by student to solve the questions.
Question 1: Point-to-point microwave path connecting to the PSTN/POTS for an emergency service
[40 marks]
This assignment seeks to motivate students to apply basic principles in telecommunications systems engineering. Systems engineering is an interdisciplinary approach aiming to enable the realisation of successful complex systems. It focuses on defining and scoping customer needs and using it to design a system that meets the needs while keeping an eye on other things such as costs and future needs (e.g. possible expansion).
Ararat and Grampians are two small cities in the Victoria State of Australia. Assume that there is a festival in Grampians and the entire communications service is not functioning. However, there is PSTN/POTS service in a nearby city called Ararat. Therefore, you have been tasked to design a microwave link to connect Grampians to the PSTN in Ararat. Your microwave link should be multimedia communications path, providing both data and voice communications service. The microwave link is expected to be highly reliable and of very high-quality (i.e. lower than expected latency, higher throughputs, high link stability). Your design must consider the basic features of a microwave link design, such as:
1. Use block diagram or figures to illustrate the overall system.
2. Discuss how your microwave link achieves availability and reliability (target: 99.999%), and how to improve upon these.
3. Link bandwidth and data transmission rate.
4. The distance between the two sites being interconnected by the microwave link.
5. Link’s signal-to-noise ratio (target: at least 20 dB)
6. Link latency (how long does it take to transfer data over the link, target 2-3 msec.)
7. Bit error rate (target: less than 10-6)
8. Operating frequency of the link and the reasons why you picked that frequency.
9. Analysis of the profile of the microwave link, including the impact of obstructions and the atmosphere on the link’s performance.
10. Link budget, including path loss calculations, fading, interference, Fresnel zones
11. Any requirement of line-of-sight or otherwise
12. Undertake economic analysis of the link (e.g., CAPEX and OPEX)
13. Equipment acquisition and commissioning issues
14. Required various testing before mass commercial application of the link.
15. Discuss any software package used to design microwave link.
16. State companies which manufacture equipment for microwave links.
17. State all necessary operating conditions under which your system operates as expected.
Question 2: Reliability of telecommunications networks
Figure 1 illustrates the downtimes and uptimes of a telecommunications system over a time. Assume that D1= 4 hours, D2 = 2 hours, D3= 1 hour, U1=8D1, U2=12D2 and U3=16D and answer the following questions.
Figure 1: Operation states of a telecommunications system over an observation period.
[11 x 2 marks = 22 marks]
Question 3 Economic Analysis of Telecommunications Infrastructure (18 marks)
Let us consider the two alternative equipment X and Y with the features in Table 1. Which of the two alternatives is the best if we seek to minimize the EUAC (equivalent uniform annual cost) when the interest rate is fixed at 5%?
Table 1: Alternative telecommunications equipment
[18 marks]