1

ELEC431 Software Engineering and Programming

Coursework 1 – Graphic User Interface (GUI)


This assignment is designed for you to gain experience in practical software development which
includes specification analysis, programme structure design, coding, testing, programme integration
and documentation. It should also help improve your problem-solving skills.


Module Coordinator Dr. Xin Tu
Coursework name CW1
Component weight 30%
Semester 1
HE Level 7
Deliverable Report only
Assessment Individual assessment (Report)
Submission format Online via VITAL
Submission deadline 5 pm on Friday 15th November, 2019
Late submission Standard university penalty applies
Resit opportunity August resit period
Marking policy Marked and moderated independently
Anonymous marking No
Feedback via VITAL GradeMark®/Turnitin Feedback Studio
Subject of relevance GUI design/software engineering
Relevant documents Available in VITAL


Introduction

You are required to develop a Matlab program to deal with the display and processing of electrical
signals.

Fig.1 shows the time-resolved electrical signals: high voltage waveform Uapp (via a 1000:1 high
voltage probe) is given in the text file called “uapp.txt” and the voltage Uc across the external
capacitance C (22 nF) is given in “uc.txt”. Both files have 2 columns and will be available in VITAL.
The first column is the time (s), and the second column is the voltage (V). The capacitor accumulates
a charge (Q) from the current flowing through the reactor and this can be determined by measuring
the voltage on the capacitor Uc:
Q = C × Uc (1)

2

Fig.1 User interface and time-resolved electrical signals


You can draw a Lissajous figure (Q-Uapp), as shown in Fig. 2.

Fig.2 Lissajous figure (Q-U)

If we can calculate the area (S) of Lissajous figure (ABCD in Fig. 2), the discharge power (P) can be
determined by

P = S × f (2)
Where f is the frequency (35 kHz) of electrical signals (Uapp and Uc).

You are not required to understand the background for this assignment if you do not have sufficient
time to do so.



You are required to submit a report which should include the following sections:

1. Introduction and Specification Analysis (10%)
A brief introduction to the aims and objectives of this coursework. The specification analysis of the
design should be included, such as input/output data and major tasks involved in the programme.
3

2. Programme Design (20%)
• Major codes for all modules including the main function;
• Hierarchy Chart for the whole programme.
• Data table for each module including the main function. You will need to indicate in the data
table of each module and the role of each variable, whether it is local or input/output.

3. GUI Design and Test (45%)

You are asked to design the program using a GUI with all figures displayed in the GUI, you are
required to

• Sketch the GUI with all controls (buttons, text boxes, etc) on it;
• Discuss on what call back functions are needed and what task each call back function
performs;
• Discuss on the advantages of using such a GUI based program for the given program
specification;
• Discuss any difficulties you meet and how you find the solutions;
• If an input data file (electrical signal) contains a different number of columns, say N columns,
what changes in your code need to be made to deal with the new data file?

The programme should have the following basic features and functionalities:

o Load the input data (electrical signals);
o Display the time-resolved two electrical signals (high voltage signal Uapp and charge
signal Q); display the properties of the signals: peak-to-peak value, root mean square
(RMS) value, minimum value and maximum value;
o Display the Q-U Lissajous figure and smooth it;
o Calculate and display the discharge power (60 W, measurement error 5%)


4. A User Manual that shows how to use this software (15%), including but not limited to
• How to load the input file of electrical signals;
• How to display electrical signals and Lissajous figure;
• How to display the parameters of electrical signals and discharge power

Note that:

The quality (presentation and structure) of the report will be awarded a mark in the
range of 0 – 10%. The sections in your report should be numbered. All figures, diagrams,
equations and tables should be numbered and quoted in the text. The source code should be
included as an Appendix. Remember to give sufficient comment in your code so the assessor
can understand it easily. The layout of the source code should allow easy reading and
recognition of the logic structured.