Engineering and Knowledge

It is my honour to write the blog for Zumbeel, the brainchild of Mohsin and the result of his untiring efforts. For the last 8 years, Mohsin has been creating new features, handling memberships and moderating emails spending hours of his valuable time. Now, Zumbeel has a new enchanting face, serving students, telecom managers, engineers and technicians in a brilliant manner. Zumbeel is a platform for all those who wish to achieve excellence in telecom career. Its power lies in its members and it can serve to the best by the help, support and sharing spirit among its members

For this months’ blog, let’s have a look at the word engineering and an engineer.

According to Wikipedia “Engineering is the discipline and profession of applying scientific knowledge and utilizing natural laws and physical resources in order to design and implement materials, structures, machines, devices and systems.

According to dictionary.com, “Engineering is the art or science of making practical application of the knowledge of pure sciences, as physics or chemistry, as in the construction of engines, bridges, buildings, mines, ships, and chemical plants”.

One who practices engineering is called an engineer. He may have licenses such as Professional Engineer, Chartered Engineer or Incorporated Engineer.

Having read the definitions of engineering, the importance of scientific knowledge becomes clear for the practice of engineering. In fact, it is the first step of acquiring scientific knowledge that is required to develop and to practice the skill of engineering.

You cannot apply the engineering skills without knowing its first hand. Therefore, it is must for every aspiring engineering student and engineer to study and get knowledge about engineering sciences.

Of course, knowledge acquisition is not only necessary in engineering. We need it in life, religion, social interaction, medical knowledge etc. You name a situation and we can handle that situation better if we know more. Our prophet (PBUH) had said: “Learn even if you have to go to China”. 1500 years back, China was considered a very far away destination and popular for knowledge and wisdom. People could only think that they might go to China for learning but it was seldom a possibility. Now, we have many more resources. Books are available around the world. We can get knowledge and educate ourselves at universities in countries never possible before. Internet has made it possible to learn quickly, cheaply and without leaving your home or office.

So, my brothers and sisters, learn while you live your life. It is not only engineering that requires learning but in fact in everything we do in our day to day living need knowledge.

References:

1. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/engineering

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineering

3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineer

Posted on Zumbeel: 2 September 2008

Last 20 years

It has been more than 20 years since I have seen the dawn of personal computers. It was start of 1980s, when as an electronics and Radio enthusiast, I read about those new personal computers which were using machine code language and assembly language. Several of these computers came into the market and competed with each other. But groundbreaking personal computer was Commodore Vic20 that brought user-friendliness and BASIC language to the home user. In UK, it was done by brilliant Sinclair ZX81 and ZXSpectrum machines. In the pocket-sized versions, it has always been CASIO which produced excellent palm top computers such as PB-700 with multi-line display. Then, It was 1984 and my NED university had Digital VAX mini-computer. We learned FORTRAN-IV language on the mini-computer that comprised of big machines and its printers were large and used to make a lot of noise.

The technology was not only developing in these personal computers, the hardware in the radio base stations and the telecom networks also improved and continuously shrinked. The MSCs that had four rows of racks for hardware vanished with few racks only. The boards were combined to form multi-function boards with faster processors. Mini-links became small and included dish antennas with the rubber waveguide made redundant. Software at the same time has taken huge leaps and now, we have planning and optimisation tools running using Oracle databases that have tremendous power than early tools. One of the most common GIS application is now Google Earth that everyone can download from the internet.

With all the development that is happening, there is something to observe. There are continuous changes in the skills that engineers need to have and the education that they need to get according to changing times and needs of the industry. In Pakistan, hardware and product development is not being done except in certain high profile government organisations. There is a dire need to develop this stream of engineers and industries where design and engineering of products is carried out including all phases of hardware and software to utilise our creative engineering skills to the best.

Posted on Zumbeel: November 2008

The Defence Industry

Of all the industries, the defence industry is very challenging and interesting for telecom engineers. This industry has developed most of the telecom theories, hardware and software till a few years back. They also have the most budget for research and bringing new technologies into reality. The world’s latest technologies and tools are with them and working for these organisations, you get the pride of serving your country as well. At the same time, the projects are secret. Therefore, your security clearance and monitoring is performed all the time and you cannot leave the country without NOC.

When in 1985, my class of NED University visited the Research labs somewhere in Islamabad and we saw the first night vision binoculars with distance measurement. We also had a look at the laser equipment developed in that institute. All that exposure increased our aptitude for research and development. Similar labs are in operation at several defence research institutes in Pakistan. SUPARCO and Qadeer Labs at Kahota are few labs which are doing research in space and defence industry. There are other companies also that are developing products and acting as representative for vendors.

It is really challenging to develop those missiles that have long distance reach and their telecom part is amazing. Its usage of DSP and algorithms makes the missile reach the target without miss within few meters. The missile is to remain in touch with ground so that it can be tracked. The RADAR systems provide the high power beams to track the missile and aircraft including air RADAR and ground surveillance RADAR. The technologies behind even their antennas are sophisticated and use cutting edge of technology. The Command and Control Systems use communications links so secure that these use frequency- hopping , spread spectrum, encryption and time- hopping at the same time.

Of course, to do these, you need the knowledge and the capability to perform the research, design and development. It is not only the systems operations and maintenance knowledge that you need; you need to know the principles behind the design and how to incorporate the knowledge into the designed product. You can also choose to modify or further develop an existing product to suit your requirements.

Those engineers who are in operations i.e. the actual field usage of these defence hardware and software are the ones who know their performance and also get exposure to the performance of these technologies. They are limited to the parts supplied by vendors and cannot modify the product, but still they get their hands on some of the special engineering designs.

In conclusion, it is a nice research and development as well as operations field for telecom engineers. But, it is not for the faint-hearted. When doing R&D, you have pressures of time, cost, quality and gaining or acquiring knowledge which may not be immediately available some times and requires definite hard work.

Posted on Zumbeel: December 2008