This book is intended for practicing engineers in the digital communication field. It
can be used as a textbook for master’s level courses (e.g., for part-time professional
education programs) or self-study. As such, the book has some unique characteristics
comparing a typical textbook on the same subject.
A typical textbook strives to provide comprehensive and pedagogically sophisticated coverage of the concepts and theories. Such treatment makes it easier for the students to grasp key knowledge points. However, practicing engineers already have good general engineering knowledge and powerful self-learning skills. They need
information sources that can be digested quickly. This book selects concepts and technologies that are most relevant to today’s communication systems and presents them concisely and intuitively.
Instead of becoming well-versed in the entire field of digital communications,
practicing engineers are more interested in getting knowledge on the specific subfields
of their work. This book is organized as self-contained chapters. One can choose to
read one or several relevant chapters, instead of the entire book.