It is probably an overstatement to say that the discipline of
telecommunication systems is becoming an application of digital signal
processing (DSP). However, there is no doubt that by the mid-I980s
integrated circuit technology has advanced to such an extent that
revolutionary advances in telecommunications are fostered by the
introduction of new and poweiful DSP algorithms. Actually, DSP has been
recently playing a major role in the development of telecommuni- cations
systems: to name just one of the most widespread applications where this
interaction has been most effective, we may mention the use of
intelligent DSP to improve the peiformance of transmission systems by
allowing sophisticated algorithm to be implemented in radio transmitters
and receivers for personal communications. Other areas have equally
benefited by the latest advances of DSP: speech coding and synthesis,
speech recognition and enhancement, radar, sonar, digital audio, and
remote sensing, just to cite afew. With this in mind, when choosing the
topic for the 7th Tyrrhenian Workshop on Digital Communications, whose
contributions are collected in this book, we aimed at focusing on the
state of the art and the perspectives of the interaction between DSP and
telecommunications, two disciplines that are becoming increasingly
intertwined. Although by no means exhaustive of all the applications of
DSP to telecommu- nications, we believe that the material presented in
this book pinpoints the most interesting among them, and hence it will
be considered as a useful tool for investigating this complex and highly
challenging field.