School of Electronic & Electrical Engineering
Coursework Assessment Brief
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Academic Year
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2024/25
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Module
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ELEC3430 Digital Communications
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Semester
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2
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Credits
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10
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Coursework Name
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Design Project
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Assessment Weight
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30%
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Enhanced Module Pass Rules Apply
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N
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Learning Outcomes Assessed
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· Use analytical techniques to predict the performance of digital communications systems.
· Implement the design procedure, and subsequent analysis, for a representative communications system case study.
· Use mathematical and simulation tools to model the performance of a typical communications subsystem.
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Submission Deadline
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2:00 PM, Thursday, 22 May 2025
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Late Submission Penalties
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5% per day as per the Code of Practice on Assessment
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Submission Format
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Submission is via the Module Minerva page (/Assessment and Feedback/Design Project)
Submit the report in pdf. All group members must submit an identical copy of the report individually.
Please use the template title page on Pg 7.
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Marks and Feedback Format
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Rubric and comments in Gradebook on Minerva
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Marks and Feedback Release Date
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Mid June 2025
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Markers Details
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Mohsen Razavi and Zhubin Yu
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Rationale
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The aim of this coursework is to help you apply what you have learned in this module to a practical setting. You have to think about designing a communications system that meets certain target objectives in an unconventional environment. You will not only assess the performance of your proposed system, but will also consider the costing and sustainability issues for your solution.
Completing the assessment will also allow you to improve your communication and digital skills.
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Assessment Details
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Please see Pg 5.
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Assessment Criteria
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Please see Pg 6.
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Presentation/Formatting
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Please submit all your work as one pdf file via the Minerva link for this assignment. The text part of your report should be in a typed format. Equations and figures can be embedded in between text as pictures of handwritten documents. You can submit multiple times until the deadline.
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Word/time limit and guidance
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There is no minimum or maximum for the report length but typically a 10-15 page document should be sufficient to explain the details of your proposal.
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Referencing
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The School of Electronic & Electrical Engineering uses the IEEE referencing style.
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Approximate Workload
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About 25 hours per group member.
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ELEC/XJEL3430 Design Project
Group Work Policy
You can work in groups of three, two, or individually, on this project. Please use the template at the end of this document to specify the group members, and their contribution under the declaration heading. All members of the group must submit the final version of the report by the deadline, otherwise it will only be marked for those who have made the submission.
Project Description
A group of researchers are monitoring the wildlife in a protected zone in an Amazon rainforest, spanning over a 25 km x 25 km square shaped area. To monitor different activities in a live setting, they are planning to deploy 500 video cameras across the site. Each camera generates 2 Mb/s worth of digital data. This data is already the compressed version of the original signal, and no further compression is possible. The collected data from each camera will be sent live to a research base located 150 km away from the centre, where the researchers study the behavior. of different subjects including various birds and monkeys. The researchers can also send several simple commands to each individual camera to change its direction, or zoom, if needed. In addition, the collected data from all these cameras are being backed up at a local data centre in the research base for future analysis use and analysis. The monitoring project is expected to last 3 years.
We want to design a communications system that allows each camera to transmit its data to the research base. We also need a communications system to control the cameras remotely by the research team. We would also need to specify the storage requirements of this project.
Suppose you are part of the engineering team responsible for designing such communications systems. Work out a proposal in which you specify
- different communications challenges your system must overcome from a system level point of view, and your suggested solution for them. For instance, you may break the system into a local wireless network that communicates wirelessly with the cameras, and a wired system that collects the data from all cameras, multiplex them together and send them to the research base. If you go with this type of solution, then, for your wireless system, you have to deal with a multiple-access problem. Think of how you can manage the interference, and the required bandwidth and power among other things.
- different components (hardware) and functionalities (your hardware specification) you need to consider for your system;
- the target performance and your solution actually offers (show your working);
- resource efficiency of your design in terms of power consumption and/or bandwidth efficiency for your proposed system; bonus point if you account for how to power up your system considering that the protected zone may not have electric power infrastructure or mobile communications;
- an estimate of the total infrastructure and running cost (excluding labour). For the former, you may need to search for the devices that you need and obtain quotes on their ballpark prices; and
- Some brief contemplation on the sustainability and environmental factors.
It would help if you first specify what target objectives you need for such a system and then design a solution that meets such requirements. For instance, think of what error rates are reasonable for the video transmission, and based on that think of possible modulation formats, available carrier frequencies (licensed or unlicensed) and bandwidth, the power consumption, and sort of devices that you need to purchase for this application. If needed, make assumptions and justify them in the use case above.
There is no unique solution to the above design problem, and the proposals you may come up with may have some strengths and some weaknesses. At every point, justify the choices and assumptions you make with proper referencing. Show your working whenever necessary using what you have learned in this module for calculating parameters of interest.
Marking Criteria
The marking criteria considers the rationality of your choices, the amount of detail you have considered for your proposal, and how you have backed them up with relevant research and correct calculations.
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Mark
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Description
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Fail
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The overall solution does not work; none of its components are properly designed.
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3
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The overall solution does not work, but a few (less than half) components of the design meet the minimum requirements
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2:2
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The overall solution may not work, but nearly half of the required components are considered, and their design meet the minimum requirements
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2:1
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The overall solution mostly work with minor adjustments. There are a few critical issues, which may not be properly addressed/designed
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1
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The overall solution works fine and it is properly presented. System performance/cost is reasonable and there are no critical issues with the design.
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Your submitted written work must meet a minimum English competency level. Please ensure that you use paragraphs and that there are links between and within paragraphs. Please ensure that your word choice and grammar do not undermine the meaning and comprehensibility of your argument and that your word choice and grammar are appropriate for an academic text. You should also correctly reference any external sources that you have used. If you fail to meet this threshold level, your work may not be assessed. In addition, you will be referred to the Language Centre for English language support to improve your academic writing for future assessments.