Telematics

Telematics Engineering or simply Telematics is a field of science that encompasses knowledge of information technology and communication technology for the development of designs, processes and techniques of services or applications that allow transmit data.

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Terminology

The word "telematics" refers to the combination of computing and communication technology for sending and receiving data. The term "teleinformatics" is also sometimes used, a term that was born in the discipline of telecommunications to designate the remote control of computer systems, although it does not describe telematics as such.

Definition

Telematics covers a scientific and technological field of considerable breadth, encompassing the study, design, management and application of communications networks and services, for the transport, storage and processing of any type of information (data, voice, video, etc.), including the analysis and design of switching technologies and systems. Telematics covers, among other concepts, the following functional plans:

• The user plane, where the information of the services and final applications is distributed and processed;
• The signaling and control plan, where the control information of the system itself is distributed and processed, and its interaction with users;
• The management plan, where the system and services operating and management information is distributed and processed, and its interaction with network operators.

Each of the planes is structured into subsystems called protocol entities, which in turn are located by their functionality at various levels. These levels are groups of functionality, and according to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) open systems interconnection model (OSI model) they are made up of: physical layer, link layer, network layer, end-to-end transport layer, session level, presentation level and application level.

It also deals with services such as tele-education, electronic commerce (e-commerce) or electronic administration (e-government), Web services, digital TV, switching and switch architecture, and also touches on issues such as performance analysis, network modeling and simulation: optimization, capacity planning, traffic engineering and network design.

Another modality is to find it focused on a specific activity such as educational telematics where the use of telematic resources aimed at Education is developed; among them the interactive communication, the distribution of the information and the pedagogical use of the services.

Origin of the term

The term telematics was coined in France (télématique). In 1976, in a report commissioned by the French president and prepared by Simon Nora and Alain Minc (known as the Nora-Minc report and distributed under the title: Computerization of Society), in which an incredibly accurate view of future technological developments.

But as in France, in the Anglo-Saxon countries there is also the telematics discipline, which is called Computer and Communications (from English: 'Computer and Communications') or Compunication (a concept coined by Wen Gao in his article Compunication: From Concept to Practice). However, there are key nuances to distinguish between the two terms. To clarify this, it is convenient to situate ourselves in the context of the time: on the one hand, France, which placed clear emphasis on telecommunications as the engine of its social transformation in the 1970s, while the United States was experiencing a great information revolution. Thus, Compunication (computers + communication) points to a more relevant model of computer systems; telematics (télématique) meanwhile, refers to a greater emphasis on telecommunication itself. At present, this difference of origin has been lost, since this scientific and technological discipline has completely converged worldwide, to form a single well-established body of knowledge. In this way, the current meaning of telematics was born.

Profile of the Technician or Telematics Engineer

The technical or telematics engineer professional profile is of a generalist nature, developing his activity in different fields, therefore the spectrum of work of the Telematics Engineer is extremely broad. Graduates in this specialty have the ability to perform all or some of the tasks listed below:

• Planning, deployment, maintenance and management, operation, integration of technologies, etc., for LAN, MAN and WAN environments, which can make use of both cable and wireless technologies, as well as Internet/Intranets, etc. for the provision of both voice and data services for various applications, from common Internet services to more sophisticated ones such as activities related to deployment and operation with telecommunications networks in urbanisations and industrial and housing polygons or private mobile networks (Field Land Service) for vehicle fleets, etc.
• Monitoring, administration, participation or technical assistance in developers and providers of telecommunication equipment and systems.
• Development of Common Telecommunication Infrastructure Projects in buildings (ICT).
• Audits and network design.
• Analysis, design and implementation of security systems and tools for both storage and transmission of information, as well as access to networks and systems.
• Diagnostics and security audits.
• Know the basic concepts of computer architecture and servers, as well as the principles of operating systems.
• Design and development of telecommunications services, as well as their implementation, commissioning, and maintenance for basic e-mail services, transfer of files, www, or more sophisticated such as e-commerce systems with the various aspects to be taken into account such as the integration of services with payment tools, third parties of confidence, and security systems (cryptography, digital signatures, etc.), etc..
• Design of distributed applications for management and telematic commerce.
• Specification, design and implementation of protocols with quality of service to support mass media services and applications through means of transmission.
• Real-time software design for entertainment applications.
• Know the theoretical foundations of programming and use in a practical way the methods and languages of programming for the development of software systems
• Capacity to design and implement databases and information systems.
• Know the basics of programming communications protocols
• Programming of access devices to information based on telecommunications networks, both under Unix environment and Windows environment.
• Design, implementation and management of computer networks and data transmission systems.
• Know the operation of each of the layers of the TCP/IP protocol battery (which comes from the OSI Pile)
• Development of embedded communications systems.
• Development of domotic systems.
• Development of Internet applications of things.

The Protocol Stack

The development of communication protocols is a fundamental milestone in the development of telematics, being the theory and architecture of protocols one of its fundamental concepts.

A protocol is a set of rules that define how communication will develop between the nodes of a computer network.

To deal with the complexity of computer networks, protocols are organized in stacks divided into different levels, where each of these levels of the stack provides a series of services to the higher level, so that it does not have to worry about the implementation of these services. The two major protocol stacks are the Internet Protocol Family and the OSI Model.

The main one is the Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) stack, which is made up of five layers:

1. Application Layer: where network applications and protocols reside. The internet application layer includes many protocols, such as HTTP, SMTP and FTP. A protocol of the application layer is distributed throughout several terminal systems, being the application in a terminal system that uses the protocol to exchange information packages with the application of another terminal system.
2. Transport Layer: This conveys the messages of the application layer between the terminal points of the application. On the internet there are two transport protocols, TCP and UDP, which can each carry the messages from the application layer.
3. Network Layer: This layer moves packages from the network layer, known as datagrams, from one host to another. The Internet network layer includes the well-known IP protocol, which defines the datagram fields, as well as the way terminal systems and routers operate on these fields. This layer also contains the routing protocols that determine the routes that the datagrams follow between origins and destinations.
4. Link Layer: The network layer trusts this layer to move a node package to the next of the route. Specifically, in each node, the network layer passes the datagram to the link layer, which delivers the datagram to the next existing node along the route.
5. Physical Layer: Finally, this layer moves each bit of the plots from one node to the next. The protocols of this layer are dependent on the link, so they depend on the means of transmission of the link.

On the other hand, the OSI Stack model has two more layers, making a total of seven:

1. Implementation
2. Presentation
3. Session
4. Transport
5. Red
6. Link
7. Physics

Telematics in Spain

In Spain, the university degree (approved by the MEC) of Telematics Technical Engineer was created in 1991, although its name was changed to Telecommunications Technical Engineer specializing in Telematics (ITT esp. Telemática) in 1995, the name under which the degree existed until 2008. This degree (ITT esp. Telemática) was offered in said year in 22 Spanish universities.

In 2008, the reform of the educational system (known as the Bologna plan) led to the degree of ITT esp. Telematics was replaced by the title Degree in Telematics Engineering.

Different master's degrees in telematics are also offered, both at the level of University Degrees and Official Degrees adapted to the European Higher Education Area.