Telecommunication Engineering 17

[otw_is sidebar=otw-sidebar-1]I hope you all are fine and doing well in life. I have been asked frequently by the students about different fields of engineering, about which is better than the other and which pays you more and what do we study in that field and what do we deal with in particular field. A lot of students have hard time in choosing the specialization subjects and icing on the cake is that they have misconceptions which lead them to fields they don’t aspire and gets bore. To answer the most frequently questions of students and young engineers I had decided to write articles about each discipline of engineering and provide as much information about to the people as possible. I had started with electrical engineering and discussed about the electronics engineering in my previous article. In this article I will talk about another important and interesting field of engineering “Telecommunication”. Another thing that students ask is about the universities’ final year projects and seems to be more scared than confused. They asked about which project would be best for their career and by which type of project can they grasp more information about the field. So, in this article I will also list down some useful final year projects of Telecommunication Engineering. Let us start, sit back and enjoy the show!!

What is Telecommunication Engineering?

As the name of the engineering discipline is suggesting, yes the telecommunication is a discipline of electrical engineering which deals with the telecommunication systems. The responsibilities of the telecommunication engineer ranges from circuit design to managing the mass developments. Putting it in the simple way the telecommunication engineer can be involved in circuit designing that is meant for telecommunication systems and the circuit could be the module for the system for example the modulator or demodulator or it can be an entire system meant for a special purpose. There a variety of circuits that is employed as the building blocks of the telecommunication systems and the telecommunication engineer needs to understand the nitty gritty of the electronic circuit design and grasp how the telecommunication systems and modules work. As you all know that there are various technologies available for performing the same task for example the telecommunication can be carried out via Electromagnetic Waves or via light as in the optical fibers, the circuits and techniques employed in Electromagnetic Waves propagation are quite different from that employed in the optical fiber technology the point I am trying to make is that in the telecommunication engineering itself there is a wide diversity and the engineer on the basis of his / her interests and expertise chose the specific field. But it is important to note that with the fast growing world there is a huge pressure on the shoulders of the engineer and as in any other discipline the telecommunication engineer also needs to understand or being harsh I would say that have expertise in wide areas of the field. I will discuss more about this in the next section. Besides having the knowledge of the circuit designing the telecommunication engineer must aware of all the latest technologies and existing systems. Telecommunication is also responsible for the installation of the telecommunication systems and facilities.

History of Telecommunication:

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Let us discuss the brief history of the telecommunication to develop the interest in one of the magics­­­­ of mankind. The word “Telecommunication” is in fact composed of two words “Telly” which means “at distance / far” and “communication” which means communication. J. So, putting together “telecommunication” means communication between distant individuals.  The journey of telecommunication is interesting and I will not be exaggerating when I say it is mesme­­­rizing. In the early times the only means of telecommunication is only by messengers, which takes days and even months to communicate at distant places. Then mankind developed the smoke signals and drums to communicate but that worked only for limited distance and can communicate only limited information. It is not until 1830 that the electrical telecommunication system emerged. The electrical telegraph was invented and Morse code was invented to communicate at distance. Another important invention in the field of telecommunication is the telephone; the electric telephone was invented in 1830 by Graham Bell. Then in 1880 first wireless telephonic conversation was conducted. Since then the field of telecommunication was growing by leaps and bounds.

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Skillsets of telecommunication Engineer:

As I mentioned earlier that I have been approached a number of times by young engineers and undergraduate students with a common and frequently asked question that whether a telecommunication engineering is a good enough field to specialize or if telecommunication engineering has enough scope to win a job. The only thing I say to them and I want to say to my readers that with the proper skillsets one can secure job in any field. It depends on the skillsets of the engineer more than on the scope of the field. Then most of the students asked what is the essential skillset to be successful telecommunication engineer. In the following I am listing down some of most essential skillset of the telecommunication engineer.

• The telecommunication engineer must have sound knowledge of basic circuit designing.
• The telecommunication engineer should have good understanding of basic electronic devices and circuit principles.
• The telecommunication engineer also needs to have in depth understanding of digital design techniques.
• The telecommunication engineer must have strong grip on theoretical concepts such as Laplace transforms, Fourier transforms, Modulation etc.
• The telecommunication engineer should be able to do prototyping with latest technologies.
• The telecommunication engineer must be updated with the latest developments no matter it is development boards, System on chips, Microcontroller Units etc.
• If the telecomm engineer has the skills to do simulations it would be icing on the cake.
• If the telecomm engineer has other skills such as drafting, PCB designing he / she would be preferred.
• Moreover sound knowledge of programming language can also help the telecomm engineer secure a job.

Most of you must have noticed that the skillset mentioned above mainly focuses on the system development. Besides designing the circuits and systems the services of telecomm engineer also include maintenance and installations of complex systems.

There is another point that needs to be mentioned before concluding the discussion. Please consider the following block diagram.

The above image shows the block diagram of the simple telecommunication system. Notice in the image that the telecommunication system is composed of different modules where each serves a particular task to accomplish the main purpose that is telecommunicationJ.

The point I am trying to make here is that telecommunication engineer must have the knowledge of as much modules / blocks as possible so he / she can design the system efficiently. I hope you get my point. If not come in comment section we will discuss.

Telecommunication Engineering Jobs:

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There are several markets which require the services of a telecommunication engineer. Following are some of them.

• Internet service providers requires telecommunication engineer to conduct their business robustly.
• Telecommunication sectors of government also require services of telecommunication for proper maintenance and installations of complex systems.
• Research and development organizations requires telecommunication engineer for conducting research on new products and prototyping.
• Several automobile companies require services of telecommunication engineer to design the complex systems / circuits.
• Cell phone companies also needs telecommunication engineer to design and develop systems to meet the ever increasing, cost effective and power efficient demands.

Telecommunication Engineering Semester and Final Year Projects:

Almost every student in almost every engineering discipline has a common concern while pursuing their Bachelors that is final year project. Final year project is the most important part of the engineering degree as it is the only way that the recruiter can assess the practical knowledge of the young graduates. So the selection of the final year project is quite critical. Before I list down the semester and final year projects I would like to advise the undergraduates who are reading this article. As an experienced engineer I have conducted interviews of a number of students and the thing I have noticed that the companies never hire an engineer unless they have some knowledge of the things the company is working on. So I would like to advise that if you want to pursue in the practical field that is not in the teaching or research field do conduct some research on the technologies most of the companies are working on. Let us list down some of the semester projects and final year projects.

• GSM (Global System for Mobile communication) based home automation system.
• GPS (Global Positioning System) based asset tracking system.
• IoT based home automation system.
• BLE based home automation system.
• LoRa based home automation system.
• Health monitoring system based on BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy).
• LoRa based dataloggers.
• RF communication systems.
• Smart ambulance systems.
• Smart traffic light control.
• RFID based employee detection and locking systems.
• Modulator circuit prototype.
• Demodulator circuit prototype.
• Decoder and Encoder circuit prototypes.
• IR based telecommunication systems.

Above are some most popular projects, you can develop your own application by using your creativity and you can achieve the novel designs based LoRa technology or BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) technology.

That is all for now folks. I hope this article would be helpful for you. I have tried to answer all the questions, still I have if I have missed some points or you want to ask anything you are encourages to come in comment section. In the next blog I will try to come up with some more useful topics till then stay blessed, keep reading and enjoy learning.