The last ten years have seen a great flowering of the theory of digital
data modulation. This book is a treatise on digital modulation theory,
with an emphasis on these more recent innovations. It has its origins in
a collabor- ation among the authors that began in 1977. At that time it
seemed odd to us that the subjects of error-correcting codes and data
modulation were so separated; it seemed also that not enough
understanding underlay the mostly ad hoc approaches to data
transmission. A great many others were intrigued, too, and the result
was a large body of new work that makes up most of this book. Now the
older disciplines of detection theory and coding theory have been
generalized and applied to the point where it is hard to tell where
these end and the theories of signal design and modulation begin.
Despite our emphasis on the events of the last ten years, we have
included all the traditional topics of digital phase modulation. Signal
space concepts are developed, as are simple phase-shift-keyed and
pulse-shaped modulations; receiver structures are discussed, from the
simple linear receiver to the Viterbi algorithm; the effects of channel
filtering and of hardlimiting are described. The volume thus serves well
as a pedagogical book for research engineers in industry and second-year
graduate students in communications engineering. The production of a
manageable book required that many topics be left out.