A wireless data communication system is implemented for servicing students in their daily academic or semester activities with their mobile devices at campus. The activities of students include asking of vacation date, examination dates, general performance average or cumulative weighted average, classes timetable, current fee values and changed timetable. With this student support service, more can be implemented in future needs.
In this present age, Humans are gradually being replaced by computers in order for tasks and processes to be easily done. To have a dynamic intelligent information retrieval system[17] whereby people can retrieve certain kinds of information based on their needs and wants at any convenient time, day or night is one area in which a computer technology will do well to replace a human but no completely.
Providing a system in an educational facility where students can make telephone calls or send sms text messages to access information about their Cumulative Weighted Average, trailed courses as well as courses for a particular semester, time table on specific days and others will reduce the burden students go through in order to access basic information. Short Messaging Service (SMS) is a technology that enables short messages of about 160 characters to be sent from one mobile phone to the other. It can be used to send regular text as well advanced content such as operator logos, ringing tones, phone configurations etc.
SMS[4] Appeared in Europe in 1991. The Global System for mobile communications included SMS from the outset. SMS is built on digital wireless standards such as code division multiple access (CDMA), time division multiple access (TDMA) and GSM. SMS provides a mechanism for transmitting data to and from wireless devices. This makes use of a short messaging servicing center (SMSC). The SMSC acts as a store and forward system for short messages. In contrast to other existing text messaging services such as alphanumeric-paging, the service elements are designed to provide guaranteed delivery of text messages to the destination. A very distinguishing aspect of SMS is that a mobile phone or handset is able to deliver or receive messages irrespective of whether a voice or data call is in session or not. SMS is characterized by out of band packet delivery and low bandwidth transfer which results in efficient means of transmitting short burst of data.
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Modem is an acronym that stands for modulator demodulator. A modem is a simple device which is capable of converting analogue signals to digital ones and digital signals to analog. Modems used to be a separate hardware third party users that had to be purchased separately. However, today’s computer manufacturers have made it one of the primary hardware components found on any computer. It is very rare to come across a computer without a modem.
This system has as its objectives to provide flexible dynamic access to basic information especially in this situation where most students do not have constant internet access.
This study work will describe the hardware interface along its logically requirements in the MobileSystem implementation. In terms of design language code, I will describe the support service.
Mobile System
The hardware interface is represented as a MobileSystem interface. The hardware interface is a wireless modem[16](modulation demodulation) that physically on nexts to a computer system with a Sim Card from a network operator based in Ghana in this case study. With Short messaging service(SMS) support from sms center of the network operator, the wireless modem is located from Over the Air Programming Protocol (OTAP)[15, 16] to enable the student service to reply back to the sender via a notification handler in the Service class, svr. The modem is represented as a ModemGateway in this implementation. The mobile system of the service has about 9 functions in the functional side of implementation. The sendrequest function works by sending text to a current student in request of information.
This is listed in MobileSystem interface and implemented in the MobileSystemImpl class. IsConnect function does indicate on invocation whether the physical modem is really connected or not to the computer system. Mobile receiver like the physical wireless device cannot operate properly on low signal state and so it is important to check on the signal state if location adjustment is needed some times. The lowSignalLevel function will provide the indicator in the system implementation. The wireless modem has its own sim card to be able to receive messages. The phone number of the device is retrieves by getPhoneNumber function . The wireless modem is initiated in the MobileSystem interface by loading the connection properties. The properties include manufacturer, terminalnane, modelttpe, baudrate and port of connected device. The MobileSystemImpl uses the ModemGateway to implement the functionality of sending and receiving messages from end users. In order to send and receive, the inbound and outbound flags have to set to true respectively. The wireless modem is logically instantiated as Serial ModemGateway with the terminal name, port, baud rate, manufacturer and a logger.
The communication design pseudocode or language is as below:
modem instanceof SerialModemGateway. modem has properties (terminal, port, baud, man, empty, logger instance). modem flags inbound(true); modem flags outbound(true); Communication Processes : modem calls init() ; modem calls isConnect() return true or false; modem calls sendRequest( text) ; modem calls lowSignalLevel() return true or false; modem gets phoneNumber modem gets service(); modem gets connParam(); serialModem instanceof modem modem calls stop();
The USB powered wireless modem (Figure 1: off, Figure 2: on state) is termed as a Serial ModemGateway.
The construction of the MobileSystemImpl takes one argument which the console view. This console is implemented as AINRSView. The properties of the implementation class includes service, baud rate, terminal name, model type, port, manufacturer, modem and console. The Console is used to log information on activity as it happens in the runtime.
Notifications
There are three main notifications in the messaging system built to support the services. These includes:
- InboundMessageNotification:This notifier is responsible for the incoming messages from the end users-The students.
- OutboundMessageNotification: This notifier is responsible for all outgoing messages from the mobile-2-system to the end users.
- Callnotification: This notifier is responsible for in calling times and it is normally used to cut calls from being accepted during service times.
After the instantiation of the serialmodem, the flags of inbound and outbound processing are enabled. Without that modem will be out of service. The inboundnotification is then instantiated by passing arguments console and service, svr. This inboundnotification is set to the Serialmodem. The OutboundMessageNotification is set also after the instantiation stage. Finally, the Callnotification is instantiated and set to the modem. The modem is finalized in preparation to send and receive messages. This serialmodem is set to the service as gateway. With the modem gateway set, the service will now start. If case of updation or troubleshooting, the service can be stopped and restarted.
Conclusion
This study of student support service is a telecommunication application on computer system with wireless GSM[1,2,3] network operating on a network provider or operator. This service will render an intelligent answering on behalf of student’s short message service identified by their mobile phone number.
Dr. Frank Appiah. He is a holder of Bsc (Hon) from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in 2018, Msc in Advanced Software Engineering from King’s college London in 2010 and PhD in computer science and engineering from both KCL (2012/2014) and KNUST (2014) respectively. Frank Appiah has professional certificates in Management and engineering since 2011. He developed StreamEPS – Stream Event Processing System in 2011 which is hosted at Github. This work is a PhD candidate at KNUST, Department of Computer Engineering, Kumasi, Ghana. This work is awarded course leadership program by Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.
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