Communication Theory

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BASIC BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. A. Artés, F. Pérez, J. Cid, R. López, C. Mosquera and F. Pérez. “Comunicaciones Digitales”, Pearson Education, 2007.

   Althought it is written in Spanish, the first basic reference is this excellent book, written by several university professors, oriented towards its use as a learning manual, which is why it is very appropriate as a reference for the subject. This book fundamentally deals with digital communications systems with a clear focus on the contents usually covered in degrees related to Telecommunications Engineering. Chapter 3 covers most of the contents of chapter 1 of the course. Chapter 4 and Chapter 9 cover, respectively, all the contents of chapters 3 and 4 of the subject.
   This book is available online through the website of its first author, Professor Antonio Artés Rodríguez, from the Carlos III University of Madrid (www.tsc.uc3m.es/~antonio/libro_comunicaciones)
   

2. John G. Proakis and Masoud Salehi. “Communication Systems Engineering” (2nd Ed.), Prentice- Hall, 1994.

   This is another excellent text on communications systems, both digital and analog. Its compact notation and its modularity facilitate the task of monitoring the contents of the subject despite its different sequencing with respect to the one followed in the subject. Chapter 4 covers the contents of chapter 1 of the subject; Chapters 3 and Chapter 5 cover the contents of chapter 2 of the subject; and finally Chapter 6 and Chapter 9 do it with those of chapter 4. Although Chapter 7 covers many of the contents of chapter 3 of the subject, in this case the approach is slightly different from that followed in the subject.

SUPLEMENTARY BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. A. Papoulis. “Probability, random variables, and stochastic processes”, (3rd Ed.), McGraw-Hill, 1991.

   One of the reference books on the foundations of probability theory and stochastic processes. An excellent reference for all the statistical concepts that are handled in the subject.

2. A. B. Carlson. “Communication Systems” (2nd Ed.), McGraw-Hill, 1986.

   Classic introductory text to analog and digital transmission. Basically, it consists of three parts: the first introduces the basics of random signals and processes; the second covers analog communications, while the third part is devoted to digital communications. The development of analog communications is simple and intuitive and is illustrated with block diagrams of systems and basic electrical circuits.

3. S. Haykin. “An Introduction to Analog and Digital Communications”, Willey, 1989.

   Another classic text that deals with analog and digital communication systems, although in this case with a clear emphasis on the latter. It is an interesting book for the introductory treatment of communication theory and the mathematical nature of its formulation.

4. B. Sklar. “Digital communications : fundamentals and applications”, Prentice Hall, 2001.

   Advanced book on digital communications, interesting for those students with a basic training in probability theory. It presents an excellent introduction to signal fundamentals, signal spectrum, and baseband transmission. From this introduction, the book presents multiple variants of modulations and modulation techniques that, although they go beyond the objectives of this subject, may be of interest to a student who has taken it.

5. T. M. Cover and J. A. Thomas. “Elements of Information Theory”. Wiley. 2006.

   Classic book on Information Theory, surely the most frequent reference in this field. The most common quantitative measures of information are introduced, such as entropies or mutual information, and some applications of them are presented.