Communication Systems 4th Edition [Hardcover]

Simon Haykin (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0471178691 | ISBN-13: 978-0471178699 | Publication Date: May 15, 2000 | Edition: 4th

This best-selling, easy-to-read, communication systems text has been extensively revised to include the most exhaustive treatment of digital communications in an undergraduate level text. In addition to being the most up-to-date communications text available, Simon Haykin has added MATLAB computer experiments.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

A new edition that takes students to the cutting edge and back!

Extensively revised and updated, this new fourth edition of COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS is the most complete undergraduate textbook on the theories and principles behind today's most advanced communications systems.

New features include:

• MATLAB computer experiments that demonstrate important aspects of communication theory
• Expanded coverage of emerging digital technologies, such as digital subscriber line (DSL), carrierless amplitude modulation/phase modulation (CAP), and discrete multi-tone (DMT)
• Dozens of examples that relate theory to real-world communication systems

Superbly organized, the text skillfully guides students through topics ranging from pulse modulation to passband digital transmission, and from random processes to error-control coding. Throughout, Haykin presents difficult concepts in language that students can easily understand.

About the Author

Simon Haykin, McMaster University

Product Details

• Hardcover: 816 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 4th edition (May 15, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471178691
• ISBN-13: 978-0471178699
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 8.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #274,700 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

51 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars What it is about, is left for you to figure out., August 7, 1999

By 

Jan (London, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Communication Systems (Hardcover)

To the best of my knowledge, this is the first undergraduate book on communication systems to include introductory treatments of time-frequency analysis and cryptography. Three years ago when I took my first communications course, I have used this book as a reference. "Modern digital and analog communication systems", second edition by P. B. Lathi, was the adapted textbook by my professor. I had four books to study the subject from; Lathi, Haykin, Zimer and Tranter, and Leon W. Couch II. Because Haykin was the most popular, I though that it was the one that I should concentrate on. Upon completion of reading each chapter, I had more questions than answers, so I had each time to turn to Lathi and Zimer, which I found much more fluid and accessible. Couch's "Digital and analog communication systems" is simply a piece of garbage. After reading Lathi's "Modern digital and analog communication systems", for analog communications course, B. Sklar for digital communications course, I gained an adequate maturity on the subject such that enabled me to read Proakis's "Digital communications", third edition, which I found to be the most serious and involved book on the subject. I still think that Haykin's "Communication systems", is very much similar to Kant's "Critique of pure reason", since you have to read the same thing over and over again until you reach the point where you start wondering "have I understood it, or is it the repetition that made me memorize the subject?!". Imagine Bertrand Russell or Kurt Godel trying to explain multiplication and division to the first grade students, the situation is analogues, Haykin, world leading communication researcher trying to explain introductory analog communication principles and digital pass band transmission to senior students, he must admit that it isn't easy to imitate R. Hamming's insightful writing style. Chapter 2 starts very well, until section 5, where the author is pointlessly trying to mention uncertainty principle, and yet, he does not. Maybe in next edition, he will include a section on Wigner distributions and somehow manage to mention tensor product. In 2.11 concept of pre-envelope is discussed in very dry manner, maybe in the next edition it will be mentioned that the real and imaginary parts of an analytic function are harmonics and in the footnote complete theory of harmonic analysis will be summarized in 5 lines. Chapter 4, Random Processes doesn't even mention optimal filtering, the subject that arises naturally in the context of signal recovery. In next edition it is expected that chaotic dynamics of the sea clutter will be compressed in a single section. Don't waste your time on chapter 5, read Lathi's (1998) chapters 12 and 13 on the same subject. Section 6.13 unfortunately doesn't include filter banks, pyramid algorithms, quadrature mirror filters and thorough five-line discussion of multi-resolution analysis. Section 7.9 does not include generalization of LMS algorithm to error back propagation, and blind deconvolution is not even mentioned. Section 8.4 on geometric interpretation of signals says nothing about Banach spaces, nor Frames. It's true that section 8.6 includes very nice discussion of coherent detection of signals in noise, but for partially coherent, deferentially coherent and double deferentially coherent communications with waveforms the reader is advised to refer to "Digital communication techniques, signal design and detection", by M. K. Simon and S. M. Hinedi, 1995. Chapter 9 on spread spectrum modulation says no more than 16 lines about synchronization, the subject that is given four pages in B. Sklar (1988). Delay locked loops does not even ring a bell. Don't you agree that synchronization is one of the main issues in the spread spectrum systems? Add to that, that examples of pseudo-random codes given in this book do not exceed periods of 256 bit length, that is less than one microsecond of randomness, while practically attainable periods are of one century duration. Anyway, for a better one chapter treatment of spread spectrum systems refer to Proakis. Section 10.13 "Compression of information" has very nice comprehensive 9 lines on vector quantization. Maybe in next edition "Information-theoretic models" and "Radial basis function networks", will be included as a section in this chapter. Don't waste your time on chapter11 "Error control codes", read B. Sklar's (1988) chapters 5 and 6. Chapter 12, what it is about is left for you to figure out. Let me conclude by saying that "Communication systems" is an undergraduate text written with graduate language. I found Haykin's "Neural networks, a comprehensive foundation", in order of magnitude superior to any other book on the subject. Meanwhile I am using his "Adaptive filter theory" to gain enough knowledge about the subject for my current project on system identification with LMS implemented with FPGA. If you are a beginner in communication systems subject, use your time efficiently by reading Lathi and Zimer on introductory subjects. If you like to go on further, than get B. Sklar, and then Proakis. Don't get deceived by brain damaged readers who claim that it is the best book as an introduction, maybe they say so, because they have failed in the course over and over again till they decided to memorize all formulas and definitions which they found organized in Haykin's. Also note that tons of universities started to adapt Lathi's instead of Haykin's.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Definitely not the best, May 3, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Communication Systems 4th Edition (Hardcover)

First, you really need to have prior exposure to the subject to thoroughly understand some of the topics involved. Some equations are introduced 'ad hoc' and are not explained, even intuitively. If you want to know the 'why' and 'how', look to other books such as Lathi's and Proakis's, which are much better. I found their books to be more systematic, more organized, and simply more logical. Our professors at my university do not seem to like this book, and the students now know why. We switched to Communication Systems Engineering by Proakis, which is more mathematically sound and much clearer. However, you can gain some useful insights from Haykin's book, so I give it two stars instead of one because everything in Haykin's book cannot necessarily be found elsewhere, so it is of use at times.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not bad at all as a reference..., November 27, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Communication Systems (Hardcover)

In the last lines of 'Preface', Haykin says: "It is expected that the reader has a knowledge of electronics, circuit theory, and probability theory". In fact he forgot to mention signals & systems, and analog & digital communications, since the book addresses professors, definitely not students. The prose comprises sophisticated ambiguous phrases, as if they were set that way on purpose, although his other books are written in clear, interesting, and intuitive style, like 'Neural Networks', 'Adaptive Filter Theory'. Probably more famous for bibliography than for the material itself, so, one can find there titles such as: 'The Analytical Theory of Heat', J.B.J. Fourier (1878).'Theory of Motion of the Heavenly Bodies', C.F. Gauss (1809). VA Kotelnikov's Theory of Optimum Noise Immunity (1947). 'Adaptive Filter Theory', Haykin (1991). 'Digital Signal Processing', Oppenheim & Schafer, etc , as if the undergraduate student, who barely distinguishes between coherent & noncoherent detection, is expected to go through such subjects. A lot of unrelated topics have been added just to make the book look thicker, like Wavelet Transform, Short Time Fourier Transform & FFT and others, each of which one wouldn't understand from it, unless he/she previously had been exposed to. The bottom line here is that I find this book completely unreadable as a text, but not bad at all as a reference for the topics that one might have had forgotten.