Communications Receivers: Principles and Design, Fourth Edition
State-of-the-art communications receiver technologies and design strategies
This thoroughly updated guide offers comprehensive explanations of the science behind today’s radio receivers along with practical guidance on designing, constructing, and maintaining real-world communications systems. You will explore system planning, antennas and antenna coupling, amplifiers and gain control, filters, mixers, demodulation, digital communication, and the latest software defined radio (SDR) technology. Written by a team of telecommunication experts, Communications Receivers: Principles and Design, Fourth Edition, features technical illustrations, schematic diagrams, and detailed examples.
Coverage includes:
• Basic radio considerations
• Radio receiver characteristics
• Receiver system planning
• Receiver implementation considerations
• RF and baseband techniques for Software-Defined Radios
• Transceiver SDR considerations
• Antennas and antenna coupling
• Mixers
• Frequency sources and control
• Ancillary receiver circuits
• Performance measurement
Why Read This Book
You will get a practical, end-to-end guide to modern radio receiver design that ties RF hardware, noise and interference analysis, and digital signal-processing algorithms into working systems. The book blends theory with measured examples and SDR strategies so you can move from system planning to implementation and troubleshooting with confidence.
Who Will Benefit
Practicing RF and systems engineers, graduate students, and technical leads who design or troubleshoot communications, radar, or SDR receivers and need a practical, up-to-date reference.
Level: Advanced — Prerequisites: Undergraduate EE background (circuits, signals & systems), basic probability and random processes, and familiarity with analog RF concepts and digital signal processing.
Key Takeaways
- Design RF front-ends and antenna coupling that meet sensitivity and selectivity targets
- Specify and implement analog and digital filters, FFT-based spectral analysis, and DSP-based demodulators
- Apply noise, intermodulation and dynamic range analysis to optimize receiver performance
- Build and evaluate SDR architectures and translate analog receiver functions into digital algorithms
- Implement adaptive filtering and basic statistical signal-processing techniques for interference mitigation
- Validate receiver designs using practical measurement techniques (VNAs, spectrum analyzers, test setups)
Topics Covered
- Introduction and receiver design overview
- Basic radio considerations: frequency plan, bandwidth, performance metrics
- Antennas, coupling networks and front-end matching
- Low-noise amplifiers, gain control and linearity
- Mixers, frequency conversion and image-rejection
- Filters and filter design — analog and digital
- Oscillators, phase noise and frequency synthesis
- Noise, sensitivity, dynamic range and spurious performance
- Modulation, demodulation and digital communications basics
- Digital signal processing in receivers: FFT, spectral analysis, digital filters
- Adaptive filtering, statistical signal processing and interference suppression
- Software-defined radio architectures and implementation considerations
- Specialized receivers: radar, direction finding, wideband and multi-channel systems
- Measurement, testing, and practical design examples
- Appendices: component data, measurement techniques and references
Languages, Platforms & Tools
How It Compares
More practical and receiver-focused than Proakis' Digital Communications (which emphasizes communication theory), and more hardware- and SDR-oriented than general DSP texts such as Oppenheim & Schafer.
