Assessment - Understanding the fundamental systems engineering principles and their applications in telecommunication systems.

Learning Outcomes -

a. Demonstrate in-depth knowledge of system engineering and understand how to make a system more reliable and efficient;

b. Acquire in-depth technical knowledge of signalling, switching and call routing in Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) and population queuing models;

c. Obtain conceptual knowledge and understanding of system reliability, maintainability, costing and design for affordability and human factors;

d. Demonstrate an in-depth understanding and knowledge of Digital Microwave Radio Systems;

e. Design Microwave links, path profile construction and acquire a comprehensive understanding of atmospheric effects on the performance of microwave links ;

Assignment Description

The purpose of this assignment is to motivate students to seek to understand the fundamental systems engineering principles and their applications in telecommunication systems. The assignment has two parts: Part A and Part B.

Part A

Telecommunications Problems

Question 1: Reliability of a Parallel System

Consider the system shown in Figure 1, which is a model of an active redundant generator at a main exchange of Telecommunication Company.

Figure 1: Active redundant generator pair

a) Assume that the reliability of each subsystem (or component) i has the reliability of Ri.

Calculate the reliability of the overall system RS as a function of Ri.

b) If the reliability of component i at time t is Ri(t)=e-λit, what is the reliability function of the overall system at time t?

c) Evaluate the mean time to failure (MTTF) of the overall system as a function of λi using the reliability function in part (b).

d) Calculate the failure rate of the overall system with exponential reliability. Hint use binomial distribution.

e) What is the mean time before failure (MTBF) of the above system?

Question 2 Digital Microwave Radio System

A point-to-point digital microwave radio system is required by a bank to link the LANs of two of its branches at 2.048 Mbps transmission speed. The handbook delivered by the manufacturer has dimensioned the entire radio terminal with the reliability:

MTBF (mean time between failures): 100,000 hours
MTTR (mean time to repair): 2 hours (equipment only)
The radio path availability was calculated for ??????=10-8 and found to be 99.999% for the average worst case. The system configuration is shown in Figure 1.

a) Calculate the overall system availability

b) Draw the reliability diagram of the system

c) How would you increase the availability of the system required by the bank?

d) The useful life of the equipment shown in Figure 2 is 15 years. Calculate the reliability of the one radio terminal at the end of it life.

Figure 2: Microwave system

Question 3 High Seed Connectivity

Access to the Internet has arguably become an essential service. However, the quality of the service varies widely in Australia. Multiple governments had promised (and begun to deliver) a high-speed connectivity throughout Australia via the NBN. Discuss and briefly explain the NBN technology. The discussion must be based on research findings, e.g. reference must be made of at least two journals.

Question 4 Functions of a Telecommunication Network

The functions of a telecommunication network, whether it is wired or wireless, are specified by the size of its coverage area and traffic carrying capacity. On the other hand, the performance of the network is specified by its quality of service.

a) What limits the size of the coverage area of a telephone exchange?

b) What limits the traffic carrying capacity of a telephone exchange?

Part B - Reflective Journal

Every student has to watch all the weekly YouTube videos relating to the topic for the week and write reflective journal weekly from week one (1) to five (5).

The purpose of this assignment is to identify new learning, self-realization and plan for improvement. Students will have an opportunity to explore the use of the online tools (eg: online blogs) to record and reflect on their learning in different ways. Students are required to:

- record the development of their ideas or insights
- reflect upon the unit content and personal experiences
- analyse their own learning and self-development
- plan to improve on identified strengths and weaknesses and
Students are required to explore situations from a personal perspective, and/or based on previous learning/industry experience. They may use the DEEP method to reflective writing. The four steps in this method are:
- D - Describe experience (past or present)
- E - Explore or consolidate new learning
- E - Evaluate/analyse/self reaction
- P - Plan future learning