This chapter combines both communications theory as well as signal processing as there is common theory involved. The reference material on these subjects are in many individual books for complete coverage of the topics, however, for an introductory level, frequently they are included in the last few chapters of many circuit or network theory texts. Many schools reserve the full coverage of these topics to the graduate level; consequently the level covered here will be an introductory one. If the reader has no references available for communication theory and signal processing, this author recommends one by Stark & Tuteur ^[1].

Communications:

Communication theory consist of the art of transmission and reception of electrical signals whether humans are involved in the process or not; thus when two computers "talk" to each other, levels of communication need to be considered. A general communication system involves signal processing. This signal processing subject area includes spectral analysis, line noise and distortion, modulation, etc. These functions include both analog (usually sinusoidal in nature) and digital (usually pulsed signals) ways of communications. A functional block diagram description is shown in the following figure (see Fig. 10.1),

Figure 10.1: Block diagram involving signal processing for a typical communications system.

Unprocessed signals needs to be processed for the kind of transmission being used whether the transmission is over coaxial cables, fiber optics, electromagnetic waves, or whatever medium of transmission is used.. Signals may be characterized by many parameters depending upon whether in the time-domain or in the...