Communication Systems Engineering [Hardcover]

John G. Proakis (Author), Masoud Salehi (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0131589326 | ISBN-13: 978-0131589322 | Publication Date: January 15, 1994 | Edition: 1st

Communication systems have become part of our daily lives through a variety of communications media such as wireline telephone channels, microwave radio, fiber-optic channels, and satellite channels. To help readers keep pace with the explosive growth of communication systems, this comprehensive volume introduces the basic principles underlying the analysis and design of both analog and digital communication systems.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Introducing concepts in the analysis and design of analog and digital communication systems, this text is intended primarily for use in a senior or first-year graduate introductory course in communications. It assumes a strong background in signals and linear systems theory and elementary probability. The text provides a detailed coverage of communication systems topics, including source coding, channel coding, baseband and carrier modulation, channel distortion and equalization, synchronization, and spread-spectrum techniques. Because of the increasing prevalence of digital communication technologies, it gives significant emphasis to digital communication concepts and techniques. Although the text is more theoretical than applications-oriented, it contains over 180 worked-out examples and over 480 problems (many with answers) to aid the reader in applying the theory to real-world situations. The authors give extra attention to the more challenging concepts, making this an ideal text for those new to the subject.

From the Publisher

An introduction to the basic principles underlying the analysis and design of communication systems -- with an emphasis on digital communications.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 889 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall; 1st edition (January 15, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0131589326
• ISBN-13: 978-0131589322
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 7.2 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #668,557 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Good coverage BUT, downside is 1. lack of examples, 2. Too many typos!, June 11, 2006

By 

T. Chien "RFIC Design Engineer" (Chandler, Arizona) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Communication Systems Engineering (2nd Edition) (Paperback)

Good:
1. Coverage is good, focuses on the trend of communication, which is digital communication. Author is not verbal, goes quickly to the point.

2. Shows you the conceptual views of the systems that implements the communication blocks.

3. Excellent plots available that compare the performances of various modulation techniques.

4. I must admit that chapter 4 (random process and probability) is a very well written chapter. It summarizes three important concepts in communication engineering, and these are Gaussian process, bandpass process, and white-noise process. The proofs to the theorems are well-presented and the organization of the chapter is logical. This is the strongest side of the book because without a good understanding of probability, there is no way to understand communication system. A+ for this!

Downside:

As it is with any book, there are the ups and the downs...here I present the major problems with this book.

1. WAY TOO MANY typos - If you read chapter 7 carefully by following the derivations, you will discover there are just TONS of typos. In fact on some pages, you can find more than 2 typos and on average there is roughly 1 typo every 2 page. I also tried to search online for the errata page, but was unsuccessful. It seems like the author doesn't even bother to put up such an errata page. This IS the reason that I gave it TWO STARS. How can anyone learn anything from this book if there are just so many typos in the book? I had the book by Sklar, which is much "cleaner" than this book.

2. Yes, I agree with all the previous reviewers that there is ALMOST NO examples in this book. The author simply presents theory and that's it! Especially in chapter 9 (channel coding), the author really needs to put in there some examples of how to work with linear coding and convolutional coding.

3. And yes, I agree with what most people are saying. This book is NOT a first book on communication system. If this is your first course in communication system and your Prof chose this book, you better hope you've got a good teacher. By simply reading this book, you still won't get too much out of it. Personally, this is the first book I read on communication system. I found myself continuously referring to books by Lathi, Sklar and Ziemer. However, if you have been previously exposed to this field and if you don't read it too carefully into the math (WAY TOO MANY Typos), I do think this book can potentially be valuable.

4. Take a look at another book written by the same author Proakis, titled "Digital Communication" and compare with this book "Communication Systems Engineering". You will DISCOVER one thing: When Proakis wrote this
"Communication Systems Engineering" book, he simply cut and paste the pages from that "Digital Communication" book or it is probably the other way around. So don't waste your money buying both of these books, for if you have limited amount of cash, just get the book "Digital Communication" by the same author. It is more mathematically fullfilling and there is at least an errata page available online! Reading "Communication Systems Engineering" feels like reading the summary of Proakis's other book. It does not make sense.


Conclusion:
No, I do NOT recommend this book at all. The reason this book is chosen by many Professors is probably because Proakis is a renowned researcher in this field and has written several books in such related field, and this book has been around for a while. From student's perspective, we do NOT care about this fact at all, we just need a book that can fill the gaps in our understandings, a book that has examples that "teach" us by "showing" us how it works and this book simply fails miserably in doing this.

Trust me, take a look at the book by Sklar. Also trust Amazon ratings. This book receives 3/5 stars on Amazon and that tells you something. Book by Sklar receives much higher ratings!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good review book, January 18, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Communication Systems Engineering (Hardcover)

Many of the bad marks for this book come from people using it to learn digital communications for the first time. However, I think its pretty good as a review text: it clearly and concisely covers the important concepts. It also manages to give a better feel of the theory from an application point of view, though their treatment of magnetic recording does not accurately describe important implementation details.

My only knock on the book is that it would be well served by having more examples.

Still, a better book as an overview is "Digital Communications" by Bernard Sklar.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars not a "first course" book., June 27, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Communication Systems Engineering (2nd Edition) (Paperback)

The back cover says this book "is primarily intended for use as a text for a first course in communications, or as a comprehensive reference for practicing engineers". I think it accomplished half of that. If you already know the material its a pretty good as a reference. For a first course in communications, its not a good text book. The examples and proofs were poor. There just seemed to be a lot of holes in the material. Even the Prof. teaching the course suggested we look to other text books because of problems with this one.