Fundamentals of Digital Communication

This chapter introduces the fundamental components of digital communication systems. It aims to place the crowning achievements of communications engineers of the last century into the context of modern systems. Topics covered in this chapter include encoding and decoding, modulation and demodulation, signal detection, the communication channel, system performance analysis, and system impairments, which engineers must cope with when designing and deploying systems in practice. The chapter provides a basic overview of equalisation techniques that can be used to combat channel dispersion. Specifically, it elaborates on the theoretical ideas that underpin multiple access in third‐, fourth‐, and fifth‐generation cellular networks. A section is devoted to discussing texts that readers might wish to consult for more detail is included at the end of the chapter.