ABSTRACT
It should be clear from the preceding chapters that communication systems exist to perform a wide variety of
tasks. The demands placed on today’s communication systems necessitate higher data rates, greater flexibility,
and increased reliability. Communication systems are therefore becoming increasingly complex, and the
resulting systems cannot usually be analyzed using traditional (pencil and paper) analysis techniques.
In addition, communication systems often operate in complicated environments that are not analytically
tractable. Examples include channels that exhibit severe bandlimiting, multipath, fading, interference, non-
Gaussian noise, and perhaps even burst noise. The combination of a complex system and a complex
environment makes the design and analysis of these communication systems a formidable task. Some level of
computer assistance must usually be invoked in both the design and analysis process. The appropriate level of
computer assistance can range from simply using numerical techniques to solve a differential equation
defining an element or subsystem to developing a computer simulation of the end-to-end communication
system.
