Introduction to Communication Systems: An Interactive Approach Using the Wolfram Language

Reviewed by Hoffbeck Joseph, Professor, University of Portland on 8/8/22

Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less

This book has most of the expected content for a first undergraduate course on analog and digital communication systems. It would be nice if there was a short introduction to spread spectrum modulation techniques (frequency hopping and direct-sequence spread spectrum). There is no index or glossary, although you can search for keywords. The Signals & Systems Review chapter lists several important equations and definitions, such as Fourier Series, Fourier Transform, convolution, etc., but doesn’t really discuss what they mean or how the equations are used.

Content Accuracy rating: 3

Most of the content is accurate, but there are errors in some of the equations and graphs that may make it difficult for the students to understand certain parts of the material (at least in the version of the textbook that I reviewed). For example, in Section 2.4 there is a typo in the formula for cn. There is a typo in the Example after Figure 2.21. There are typos in the table with headers Filter Type and H(f). In Figure 2.44 (and the other DFT plots), the DFT plot is not scaled consistently with the DFT definition. There is a typo in Section 10.1 in the definition of instantaneous frequency.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

The content seems up-to-date and includes some discussion of recently deployed cellular and WiFi standards.

Clarity rating: 4

The writing is clear in most places. There are a couple of places where the author uses terms that are not defined, such as in Section 1.1 where dBm is not defined and Chapter 12 where link budget is not defined. Some sections (for example Sect 1.1 and Chapter 6) could be improved by adding an introduction that explains what material in contained in that section, why it is important, and/or how it relates to the rest of the material. The examples are live Mathematica simulations that allow the student to set different parameters values and immediately see the resulting graph, which is helpful. Some of the graphs in the examples don’t use enough points to make smooth lines, which makes it difficult to see what is going on.

Consistency rating: 5

The presentation is consistent.

Modularity rating: 5

The material is broken into sub-sections. Some of the sub-sections are long.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

The material is presented in a logical order.

Interface rating: 3

The book is viewed using the Wolfram Player. It is a bit difficult to jump around in the text. To close a section, you must scroll up to the top of the section and click a button. The Sections and Figures are numbered, but the examples, equations, and pages are not numbered, which makes it difficult to refer to a specific example, equation, or part of the text. On my system, many of the interactive figures didn’t work; they were blank and gave an error message when you hover the mouse over the figure.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

The text is well-written.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

The text does not appear to contain culturally insensitive or offensive material.