Customer Reviews

Principles of Spread-Spectrum Communication Systems

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Another technically in depth book from Springer. This recent addition to their portfolio explains the basis of the huge growth in mobile communications. Mostly in cellphones, but also in other devices like laptops that might communicate via a protocol like WiFi.

The basic idea is explained of using a pseudo-random approach to sharing the spectrum in a given volume of space. Very elegant! Torrieri shows how the military developed it during the long years of the Cold War. But, ironically, nowadays the civilian application market has overtaken the military sector in its usage.

The actual maths can get hairy. The book could actually go into much more of this detail. But the author decided to deprecate the more abstruse workings. Still, the book is certainly not a trivial read. It can be a solid but worthwhile challenge for a grad student to master its contents.

This book serves as a great, reliable resource for my graduate studies and profession. Several times, I have consulted this book to re-familiarize myself with the fundamentals of spread-spectrum systems. I have books in the same subject area that do not keep me as engaged in the material as this book has. It is not often I encounter technical books that are so well written, thorough, and easy to understand. I was especially pleased with the new material that has been added since the previous addition. Beyond the relevant additional material added, it seems every chapter has been enhanced. After reading only a few pages one can tell the author not just an expert on the subject, but is also a very proficient writer. I highly recommend this book.

Spread spectrum techniques were heavily researched in the 1990s, although in the last decade focus has shifted to MIMO and other new developments. However, CDMA still features as the backbone of several 3rd and 4th generation cellular technologies.

This book starts from the basics of direct sequence and frequency-hopping systems (Chapters 2 and 3) and works up to CDMA in chapter 6. Chapters on channel coding and wireless fading channels are included for good measure. The problems at the end of each chapter are solvable, although few in number. It cannot be overlooked that to work your way through this book you need a solid grasp of probability theory and calculus, this is definitely a book for graduate/advanced students.

Overall, a handy reference tool for graduate students and engineers.

I was recommended this book by my mentor and professor because it is the latest and greatest reference for the subject area. Although the exposition emphasizes theoretical principles, the choice of specific topics is tempered by their practical significance and interest to both researchers and system designers. I have talked to others in the field about what resource they use most and this book is consistently named as the best of the best.