COMPUTERISED DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM FOR COMMUNICATIONS PLANNER

Abstract

Communications planners have to consider many factors when deciding how best to provide a communications system to support communications users. This is becoming an increasingly difficult task, and manual methods of calculation and planning are rapidly becoming obsolete. The computerisation of certain stages of the process of communications planning is one solution to the problem. This project first identified the areas where computers can be of greatest use to the communications planner. This divided the project into several sub-projects each concerned with one aspect of communications planning. Each of these were then tackled as a separate problem and most eventually became modules of the completed communications planning program package. The modules developed include the Radio Wave Propagation Module, which assesses the link quality between a transmission point and a receiving point, the Resource Management Module, which keeps track of the serviceability and usage of all communications equipment, the Network Reliability Assessment Module, which determines how robust a communications network is to the deletion of nodes and links, the Frequency Management Module, which checks whether the frequencies used in the communications network might interfere with each other at the network level, and the Report Generation Module, which generates various reports and communications instructions. These modules were integrated into Telecommunications Planning Software, which performs as a decision support system for communications planners. In the course of the project, one of the most important factors that was kept in mind during software development was that the computer should in no way be a substitute for human experience and choice. The computer should only be used as a tool for decision making, but it should not make the decisions itself. The software produced helps to perform mechanical and repetitive tasks, do complex mathematical calculations and keep track of large amounts of information which would put a strain on human memory. However, the decisions are always made by the user.