# Telecommunication Instructional Modeling System

TIMS, or Telecommunication Instructional Modeling System, is an electronic device invented by Tim Hooper and developed by Australian engineering company Emona Instruments that is used as a telecommunications trainer in educational settings and universities.

## History

TIMS was designed at the University of New South Wales by Tim Hooper in 1971. It was developed to run student experiments for electrical engineering communications courses. Hooper’s concept was developed into the current TIMS model in the late 1980s. In 1986, the project won a competition organized by Electronics Australia for development work using the Texas Instruments TMS320. Emona Instruments also received an award for TIMS at the fifth Secrets of Australian ICT Innovation Competition.

## Methodology

TIMS uses a block diagram-based interface for experiments in the classroom. It can model mathematical equations to simulate electric signals, or it can use block diagrams to simulate telecommunications systems. It uses a different hardware card to represent functions for each block of the diagram.
TIMS consists of a server, a chassis, and boards that can emulate the configurations of a telecommunications system. It uses electronic circuits as modules to simulate the components of analog and digital communications systems. The modules can perform different functions such as signal generation, signal processing, signal measurement, and digital signal processing.

### Variants

The block diagram approach to modeling the mathematics of a telecommunication system has also been ported across to other domains.

### Simulation

Where the blocks are patched together onscreen to mimic the hardware implementation but with a simulation engine (known as TutorTIMS).

### Remote access

It can be used by multiple students at once across the internet or LAN via a browser based client screen. This utilises a statistical time division multiplexing architecture in the control unit. The method is applied both to Telecommunications and Electronics Laboratories (known as netCIRCUITlabs).

## V References

* ↑ Sarfaraz, Maysam (2011-05-01). Educational Applications of Partial Reconfiguration of FPGAs (Master's thesis). University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
* ↑ Silva, Mário Marques da (2018-09-03). Cable and Wireless Networks: Theory and Practice. CRC Press. ISBN 978-1-4987-5154-4.
* ↑ ASEE Annual Conference Proceedings. American Society for Engineering Education. 2004.
* 1 2 "Using Telecommunication Instructional Modelling System (TIMS) in Communications Systems Course" (PDF). American Association for Engineering Education. Paper ID #18924. 2017.
* ↑ Hooper, T. L. (1973-08-01). "Telecommunications Systems Modeling in the Laboratory". IEEE Transactions on Education. 16 (3): 148–152. Bibcode:1973ITEdu..16..148H. doi:10.1109/TE.1973.4320828. ISSN 1557-9638.
* ↑ "NJIT- EE495 : Introduction to Modeling with TIMS". web.njit.edu. Retrieved 2021-08-13.
* 1 2 Breznik, Alfred (2004-01-30). "Hands-on learning system for Wireless laboratory courses" (PDF). Proceedings of the 2004 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition: 9.658.1–9.658.5.
* ↑ Wierer, Jay; Chandler, Edward (June 2011). "Analog and Digital Communications Laboratory Experiments Using Emona TIMS". 2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings: 22.203.1–22.203.12. doi:10.18260/1-2--17484. S2CID 54537460.
* 1 2 "Sticisce avstralskih Slovencev - Slovenian network in Australia". www.glasslovenije.com.au. Retrieved 2021-07-08.
* 1 2 Breznik, Alfred (2004-10-01). TIMS-301 USER MANUAL (PDF). Emona Instruments Pty Ltd.
* ↑ Purani, Abhilash M. (2010-04-23). An Evaluation of Low Cost FPGA-Based Software Defined Radios for Education and Research (Master's thesis). University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
* ↑ Sandoval, Jose R Santamaria (2020-04-01). "Application of the EMONA TIMS platform for the Telecomunications Engineering career at UNED Costa Rica". Engineering Education.
* 1 2 Khan, Muhammad Ajmal (2018-06-01). "Enhancing Students' Lab Experiences using Simulink-based Pre-Labsof Corresponding Hardware-based Labs" (PDF). Proceedings of the 2018 ASEE North Central Section Conference.
* ↑ Sakovičs, Ričards (2019). Digital-to-analog and Analog-to-digital Converter Operational Research (Bachelor's thesis). Riga Technical University.
* 1 2 3 Jeřábek, Josef (2008-11-02). Optimalizace telekomunikačního výukového prostředí (Master's thesis). Vysoké učení technické v Brně.
* 1 2 3 Veettil, Binesh Puthen; Payne, David; Bagnall, Darren; Cetin, Ediz (2020-12-01). "Quantifying and Improving Student Engagement with Remotely Accessible Laboratory Project Hardware (RALPH)". 2020 IEEE International Conference on Teaching, Assessment, and Learning for Engineering (TALE). pp. 714–718. doi:10.1109/TALE48869.2020.9368478. ISBN 978-1-7281-6942-2. S2CID 229209526.
* ↑ Manfredini, Carlo; Breznik, Alfred; Jordan, Patrick; Galli, Carlos (2024), May, Dominik; Auer, Michael E.; Kist, Alexander (eds.), "Multi-user Remote Access Hardware Labs for Wireless and Electronics Undergraduate Courses", Online Laboratories in Engineering and Technology Education: State of the Art and Trends for the Future, Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland, pp. 499–518, doi:10.1007/978-3-031-70771-1_25#citeas, ISBN 978-3-031-70771-1, retrieved 2025-03-13