Unit 4038 Telecommunication Principles Assignment Brief

Introduction

Telecommunication deals with the transmission of information such as voice, images and data using three elements: transmitter, medium and receiver. Applications of telecommunications are all around us including mobile phones, satellite TV, computer networks, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

This unit starts with the fundamental principles of wireless communication systems including frequency spectrum and the sources of noise and interference. Theories and practices of analogue and digital communication are then analysed. The unit further covers the physical practicalities of telecommunication systems such as guided and unguided transmission media, security and network architectures.

It is essential that students have successfully completed level 4 or equivalent units containing electrical circuit theory and analogue/digital electronics before undertaking this unit.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this unit students will be able to:

LO1 Develop fundamental knowledge of analogue electronic communication

LO2 Analyse digital communication techniques

LO3 Assess transmission channels and applications

LO4 Investigate the design of Data Networks.

Essential Content

LO1 Develop fundamental knowledge of analogue electronic communication

Characteristics and performance:

• Sinusoid relationships: frequency, wavelength and velocity
• RF spectrum: ULF, LF, MF, VHF and EHF, Bandwidth, Gain and Attenuation, use of the decibel (dB) Noise: Sources; Internal, external, natural and man-made.
• Effects; Interference, cascaded systems, Calculations; signal to noise ratio, thermal noise, noise factor and power.

Modulation Techniques:

• Amplitude modulation (AM); Applications, carrier frequency, baseband signal, mixers, time and phase representation, modulator and de-modulator circuits, double sideband suppressed carrier (DSB-SC), single sideband suppressed carrier (SSB-SC). Frequency modulation (FM); Applications, Bessel coefficients, Carson’s rule, wideband, narrowband, varicap diode circuit, crystal-controlled phase locked loop (PLL), PLL demodulator circuits. Phase Modulation (PM); Phase shift keying; Binary, Quadrature, 8 point and 16 point.

RF Transmitter and Receiver Circuits:

• Transmitters; Oscillators, Modulation, Power Amplifiers, Matching, Antennas.
• Receivers; Low Noise Amplifiers, Mixers, Tuning Circuits, Detectors. Filtering; Bandpass Chebyshev and Butterworth designs. The Super Heterodyne Receiver.

LO2 Analyse digital communication techniques

Digital Communication Fundamentals:

• Digital Data; Coder-Decoder (CODEC), Baud Rate, Bandwidth, Multiplexing
• Analogue to Digital Conversion (ADC); Dynamic range, quantization error, conversion rate, noise. Sampling, Nyquist Theorem, Digital to Analogue Conversion (DAC); Accuracy, Linearity, Monotonicity, Conversion time, Resolution
• Shannon’s Theory, Design trade-offs meeting objectives against constraints.

Digital Modulation:

• Data transmission; Baseband digital signalling, digital receiver/generator, non-return to zero (NRZ) and return to zero (RZ), Spectrum of a pulse, effects of noise, raised cosine filter, limitations of baseband signalling. Pulse Coded Modulation (PCM); Carrier Based Signalling; Amplitude shift keying (ASK), Frequency shift keying (FSK), Phase shift keying (PSK), Binary phase shift keying (BPSK), filtering techniques, Digital Signal Processors (DSP)
• Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing; Quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) and Quadrature phase shift keying (PSK).
• Coding and Decoding; Hamming, Cyclic-Redundancy, Convolution, Maximum-likelihood Viterbi, Reed-Solomon.

LO3 Assess transmission channels and applications

Characteristics and Selection criteria:

• Transmission line theory; reflections, standing waves and return loss
• Channel terminology; Propagation delay, attenuation, data transfer rate security, mechanical strength, physical dimensions, throughput, configuration, gauge, bandwidth, error performance, distance, cost, capacity.

Media Types:

• Guided; Copper wires, twisted pair, coaxial cable, fibre optics, power line carrier
• Unguided; Infrared, radio wave, microwaves, lasers, satellite radio.

Applications:

• Telephone, computer data transfer, television, radio frequency transmitters and receivers, digital audio, satellite communication, Ethernet, smart grids, video, Bluetooth, paging, global positioning system (GPS), Wi-Fi, WiMax, Radar, Dedicated Short Range Communication (DSRC) for vehicles, internet of things.

Security:

• Implications of unsecured wireless network
• Classifications; spoofing, tampering, repudiation, information disclosure, denial of service, elevation of privilege (STRIDE)
• Standards; ISO27002, IEC-62443.

LO4 Investigate the design of Data Networks.

Network Types:

• Personal Area Network (PAN), Local Area Network (LAN), Metropolitan Area Network (MAN), Wide Area Network (WAN), Internetwork (Internet).

Network Topologies:

• Point-to-point, Bus, Star, Ring, Mesh, Tree, Daisy Chain, Hybrid.

Network Layers:

• Open System Interconnect (OSI) standard layers; Application, Presentation, Session, Transport, Network, Data Link, Physical
• Internet Model; TCP/IP protocol suite.

Network Security:

• Threats; Interruption, Privacy-Breach, Integrity, Authenticity
• Cryptography encryption; Secret Key, Public Key, Message Digest.

Network Switching:

• Categories; Circuit, Message, Packet. Schemes; Space/time division.

Learning Outcomes and Assessment Criteria

Recommended Resources

Note: See HN Global for guidance on additional resources.

Print Resources

Dodd, A.Z. (2018) The essential guide to Telecommunication, Prentice Hall.

Frenzel L. (2023) Principles of Electronic Communication Systems. 5th Ed. McGraw-Hill.

Horowitz, P. and Hill, W. (2015) The Art of Electronics.

Sibley, M. (2018) Modern Telecommunications Basic Principles and Practices, CRC Press.

Young, P.H. (1998) Electronic Communication Techniques, Macmillan Publishing.

Website Tutorials 

Store.tutorialspoint.com (2020) Premium Ebooks – Tutorialspoint [online] Available at: https://store.tutorialspoint.com/

Links

This unit links to the following related units:

Unit 4019: Electrical and Electronic Principles

Unit 5014: Analogue Electronic Systems.

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