Michael B. Pursley
INTRODUCTION TO DIGITAL COMMUNICATION
Hardcover, pp. 672, plus XVI
Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458, 2005, First printing
ISBN 0-13-123392-0

Intended readership

This book provides an introduction to the basic concepts in digital communications. The focus in this book is on digital signal transmission in baseband as well as in passband.

The book is very well organized. Each chapter of the book is organized in a scholarly way, containing a brief introduction, analysis of the main theme, set of solved exercises, large set of unsolved problems, references, and further reading.

This text can be used as a reference book for researchers and specialists who are interested in learning the basic principles of digital communications.

Chapter content

This book is organized in 9 chapters, 5 appendixes, and a comprehensive Index.

Basic properties of random variables and an introduction to the notation for subsequent chapters is given in Chapters 1 and 2.

The linearly filtered random processes analysis is discussed in Chapters 3 and 4. Second-order random processes, emphasizing correlation functions, spectral densities, and their role in the analysis of random processes in linear systems are also discussed in these chapters.

Chapter 5 is devoted to the simple model of the baseband communications with the basic principles of matched filtering, optimum correlation receivers and statistical decision theory. In this chapter, a specific structure on the communication receiver is imposed, and the optimum elements for this receiver are derived. Methods for the analysis of suboptimum filters in communication receivers are also considered in this chapter.

Chapter 6 is entitled Coherent Communications. Coherent communication receivers are examined, and performance analyses are provided for binary and quaternary phase-shift keying, minimum-shift keying, quadrature amplitude modulation and nonbinary orthogonal signal sets. The spectral efficiencies of mentioned modulation techniques are also presented in this chapter. Chapter 6 also discusses the problem of carrier extracting and the degradation that results from an imperfect carrier extraction.

Noncoherent communications are the primary topics in Chapter 7. Analyses are given for optimum and suboptimum receivers. Noncoherent demodulation of differentially encoded BPSK modulation is described, and the performance of nonbinary orthogonal signaling with noncoherent reception is derived.

The main cause of performance degradation of a digital communication system is intersymbol interference. This problem is considered in Chapter 8. An introduction to equalization for channels with known transmission characteristics is also provided.

Chapter 9, entitled Spread Spectrum Communications, consists of a brief review of basic modulation schemes and its performances. The possibility of multiple access (CDMA) is mentioned and the direct sequence system (DS- SSMAC) performance analysis is given.

The basic properties of Hamming code are provided in Appendix A. Appendix B describes the basic properties of Reed-Solomon code. The complex representation of communication signals is introduced in Appendix C. Sampling method for deriving the optimum receiver is described in Appendix D. Alternative receiver structures for coded signals are shown in Appendix E.

Useful book for students

The book is well written. The presentation of the material is quite clear.

The book is also valuable for several examples and exercises with solutions being provided, since they may help students to better understand the matter in the book. Also, students may check the level of its knowledge by doing problems at the end of each chapter.

The material presented in the book is intended for undergraduate students studying communications.

Finally, having in mind all of the above, I would recommend this book to everyone who wants to get familiar with the basic principles of digital signal transmission.