Design & Implementation of a Fiber Optic Communications Laboratory

This study is on the development of a remote Fiber Optic Communications laboratory. The system developed was based on the iLabs Shared Architecture. This architecture is a three-tiered platform that enables development, deployment and sharing of online experiments, as a supplement to conventional laboratories. The core objective of the research was to extend the functionality of the iLabs Shared Architecture to support experimentation in Fiber Optic Communications. A functioning prototype of the Interactive iLabs Architecture was implemented, and experiments in Bidirectional Fiber Optic Link and Wavelength Division Multiplexing design and tested. They were executed on the EMONA FOTEx board, an add-on board to the NI ELVIS II and powered by LabVIEW. Documentation that involved writing of Concept Paper, Proposal, System Requirements‘ Specification Document, Design Specification‘s Document, Research thesis and a scientific paper was also undertaken. This resulted in not only curriculum support through the designed experiments, but also tremendous capacity development in regards to software development, research, writing, organizational and presentation skills.