Digital Communication
This book concerns digital communication. Specifically, we treat the transport of bit streams from one geographical location to another over various physical media, such as wire pairs, coaxial cable, optical fiber, and radio. We also treat multiple-access channels, where there are potentially multiple transmitters and receivers sharing a common medium. Ten years have elapsed since the Second Edition, and there have been remarkable advances in wireless communication, including cellular telephony and wireless local-area networks. This Third Edition expands treatment of communication theories underlying wireless, and especially advanced techniques involving multiple antennas, which tum the traditional single-input single-output channel into a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) channel. This is more than a trivial advance, as it stimulates many advanced techniques such as adaptive antennas and coding techniques that take advantage of space as well as time. This is reflected in the addition of two new chapters, one on the theory of MIMO channels, and the other on diversity techniques for mitigating fading. The field of error-control coding has similarly undergone tremendous changes in the past decade, brought on by the invention of turbo codes in 1993 and the subsequent rediscovery of Gallager's low-density parity-check codes. Our treatment of error-control coding has been rewritten to reflect the current state of the art. Other materials have been reorganized and reworked, and three chapters from the previous edition have been moved to the book's Web site to make room.
Why Read This Book
You should read this book if you want a thorough, engineering-focused treatment of digital communication systems: it takes you from modulation and optimum detection through channel models and practical wireless techniques (including multiple antennas). The text balances mathematical rigor with worked examples and gives you the analysis tools used to evaluate BER, fading effects, diversity, and MIMO performance.
Who Will Benefit
Senior undergraduates, graduate students, and practicing engineers working on communications, wireless systems, or DSP who need solid analytical foundations and practical design insight.
Level: Advanced — Prerequisites: Undergraduate signals & systems and basic probability/random processes; linear algebra and familiarity with complex baseband representations are highly recommended.
Key Takeaways
- Analyze and derive optimum receivers (matched filter, ML/MAP) for digital signals in AWGN
- Compute error probability (BER/FER) for common modulation schemes (PSK, QAM, FSK) in AWGN and fading
- Model multipath and fading channels and evaluate diversity/multiple-antenna (MIMO) gains
- Apply multiple-access concepts (TDMA, FDMA, CDMA) and understand spread-spectrum fundamentals
- Design and assess equalization and synchronization approaches for symbol recovery over dispersive channels
- Relate practical system performance to information-theoretic limits such as capacity for various channels
Topics Covered
- Introduction and overview of digital communication systems
- Signals, complex baseband and modulation fundamentals
- Probability, random processes and noise in communication systems
- Detection theory and the matched filter/optimum receiver
- Binary and M-ary modulation: PSK, QAM, FSK and performance in AWGN
- Error probability analysis and bounds
- Inter-symbol interference, pulse shaping and Nyquist criteria
- Multipath propagation, fading channel models and diversity techniques
- Equalization and receiver structures for dispersive channels
- Multiple access techniques and spread-spectrum fundamentals
- Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems and space–time concepts
- Synchronization, channel estimation and practical implementation issues
- Selected topics: coding basics, channel capacity and wireless system design considerations
Languages, Platforms & Tools
How It Compares
Covers the same core material as Proakis' Digital Communications but is slightly more application-oriented; for deeper MIMO/information-theory treatment, compare with Tse & Viswanath's Fundamentals of Wireless Communication.
