Nowadays, wireless communications is, without a doubt, the fastest growing segment of the communication industry. During the past four decades, we are witnesses of significant changes and rapid growth in this field of technology development. Wireless communications have moved from 1G systems focused on voice communications to 3G systems dealing with Internet connectivity and multimedia applications. The 4G systems will be very soon designed and dedicated to efficiently connect wireless personal area networks, wireless local area networks and wireless wide-area networks into one unique and large system. In other words due to its possibility to carry information from a wide variety of sources, from speech to music to video to short text messages to Internet pages, wireless communications has become increasingly important not only for professional applications but also for many fields in our daily routine and in consumer electronics applications. However, many technical challenges remain unsolved in designing wireless systems that can deliver the performance necessary to support the above mentioned emerging applications.
In this book the authors introduce readers with the basic principles, concepts and techniques used in development and designing of wireless communication systems. It is divided into eight chapters, two appendices, an Acronyms listing, and an Index. The book covers the following subjects:
Chapter 1, Introduction, pp. 1-16, briefly explains to a reader the problem of moving information from one point to another. It introduces the concept of wireless system, defines its general architecture, gives an historical perspective of a radio system, and points to the role of a system engineer.
Chapter 2, The Radio Link, pp. 17-76, presents the most fundamental elements of a wireless system. Two crucial aspects are considered. The first aspect deals with radio wave propagation, while the second concentrates to the quality of a communication service by involving thermal noise and receiver analysis, and energy optimization of a transmission system.
Chapter 3, Channel Characteristics, pp. 77-147, concentrates on signal propagation in the real world. The influence of variety of objects such as the Earth's surface, trees, and buildings on corrupting the signal quality is discussed. The phenomena associated with shadow fading, Rayleigh fading, and multiple-path propagation are described in more details.
Chapter 4, Radio Frequency Coverage: Engineering and Design, pp. 149-201, discusses how frequency reuse enables the design of communication systems that serve multiple users over a wide geographical area. The main themes discussed here are with requirements assessment and system architecture, concepts of cellular systems their planning and operational considerations related to dynamic channel assignment and handoff concepts, and traffic engineering, i.e. usage of statistical model in order to determine how many users can be supported by a given number of channels.
Chapter 5, Digital Signal Principles, pp. 203-286, describes the methods used to convey information over wireless link. Three signaling concepts are covered in more details. The first deals with base-band digital signaling, the second concentrates on carrier-based signaling, while the third focuses on spread-spectrum signaling.
Chapter 6, Access Methods, pp. 287-342, presents various methods that allow many users to access the system and to simultaneously use the resources it provides. The principles of operation of frequency-division multiple access, time-division multiple access, code- division multiple access, and contention-based multiple access are explained.
Chapter 7, Information Sources, pp. 343-395, discusses several types and sources of information commonly communicated in todays wireless systems. The hottest topics considered here are with information sources and their characterization (including speech, music, images, video, data, and quality of service), digitalization of speech signals, and coding for error correction.
Chapter 8, Putting It All Together, pp. 397-442, presents the basic principles of the first-, second-, and third-generation of wireless systems. Next, some details related to contemporary systems and 3G evolution are given. The discussion concludes with OFDM as an architecture for the forth generation of wireless systems.
The book contains two appendices. Appendix A lists some statistical functions and tables, while Appendix B gives more information about traffic engineering.
The aim of this book is to present a clear and intuitive description of the unique capabilities of wireless communications. This is accomplished by presenting the core material which is specific for wireless systems used in consumer products and industrial applications.
The book is well written, timely, and its organization is good. The style throughout is readable, and the explanations are informative, clear and qualitative. It is suitable as a reference textbook for a course in Wireless communications systems, for undergraduate level students in Computer Engineering. The book is also well suited for self-study, and it will serve as a valuable reference for all those starting to work in the field of wireless systems design.
According to the above mentioned, I highly recommend this book.
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