Written by some of the world's leaders in communications, this is a hands-on, example-rich guide to simulating communications systems. The book offers practical guidance on every key aspect of simulation, as well as detailed models that can serve as laboratories for evaluating the potential impact of changes in system design.

WILLIAM H. TRANTER is Bradley Professor of Communications and Associate Director of the Mobile and Portable Radio Research Group at Virginia Tech. He has authored or co-authored many technical papers and two widely used textbooks: Principles of Communications: Systems, Modeling, and Noise, Fifth Edition and Signals and Systems: Continuous and Discrete, Fourth Edition. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and currently serves as Vice President - Technical Activities of the IEEE Communications Society.

K. SAM SHANMUGAN is Southwestern Bell Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at The University of Kansas, Lawrence. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and author or co-author of over 100 publications and three books: Digital and Analog Communication Systems, Random Signals and Noise, and Simulation of Communication Systems, Second Edition.

THEODORE S. RAPPAPORT is a professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Texas, and director of the Wireless Networking and Communications Group (WNCG.org). In 1990, he founded the Mobile and Portable Radio Research Group (MPRG) at Virginia Tech, one of the first university research and educational programs for the wireless communications field. He is the editor or co-editor of four other books on the topic of wireless communications, based on his teaching and research activities at MPRG.

KURT L. KOSBAR is Assistant Chair for Laboratories and Equipment, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Missouri, Rolla.

Preface This book is a result of the recent rapid advances in two related technologies: communications and computers. Over the past few decades, communication systems have increased in complexity to the point where system design and performance analysis can no longer be conducted without a significant level of computer support. Many of the communication systems of fifty years ago were either power or noise limited. A significant degrading effect in many of these systems was thermal noise, which was modeled using the additive Gaussian noise channel. Many modern communication systems, however, such as the wireless cellular system, operate in environments that are interference and bandwidth limited. In addition, the desire for wideband channels and miniature components pushes transmission frequencies into the gigahertz range, where propagation characteristics are more complicated and multipath-induced fading is a common problem. In order to combat these effects, complex receiver structures, such as those using complicated synchronization structures, demodulators and symbol estimators, and RAKE processors, are often used. Many of these systems are not analytically tractable using non-computer based techniques, and simulation is often necessary for the design and analysis of these systems. The same advances in technology that made modern communication systems possible, namely microprocessors and DSP techniques, also provided us with highspeed digital computers. The modern workstation and personal computer (PC) have computational capabilities greatly exceeding the mainframe computers used just a few years ago. In addition, modern workstations and PCs are inexpensive and therefore available at the desktop of design engineers. As a result, simulationbased design and analysis techniques are practical tools widely used throughout the communications industry. As a result, graduate-level courses dealing with simulation-based design and analysis of communication systems are becoming more common. Students derive a number of benefits from these courses. Through the use of simulation, students in communications courses can study the operating characteristics of systems that are more complex and more real world than those studied in traditional communications courses since, in traditional courses, complexity must be constrained to ensure that analyses can be conducted. Simulation allows system parameters to be easily changed, and the impact of these changes can be rapidly evaluated by using interactive and visual displays of simulation results. In addition, an understanding of simulation techniques supports the research programs of many graduate students working in the communications area. Finally, students going into the communications industry upon graduation have skills needed by industry. This book is intended to support these courses. A number of the applications and examples discussed in this book are targeted to wireless communication systems. This was done for several reasons. First, many students studying communications will eventually work in the wireless industry. Also, a significant number of graduate students pursuing university-based research are working on problems related to wireless communications. Finally, as a result of the high level of interest in wireless communications, many graduate programs contain courses in wireless communications. This book is designed to support, at least in part, these courses, as well as the self-study needs of the working engineer. This book is divided into three major sections. The first section, Introduction, consists of two chapters. The first of these introductory chapters discusses the motivation for using simulation in both the analysis and the design process. The theory of simulation is shown to draw on several classic fields of study such as number theory, probability theory, stochastic processes, and digital signal processing, to name only a few.