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RF & Wireless Technologies
EN-Genius Reviewer: Dennis L Feucht
by Bruce Fette, et al, Published by Newnes-Elsevier
ISBN 13: 978-0-7506-8581-8, paperback, 712 pp plus CD, $59.95, September 2007
This book is part of the Newnes Know It All series, and the result of a big group effort, including that of two authors receiving favorable reviews previously on EN-Genius for their own books: Douglas Miron and Daniel Dobkin. This book covers communications electronics, from radio to wireless telecom to IrDA, VSAT, LANs, and optical transmission. With so many contributors (usually on a per-chapter basis), the perspective is broader than a single engineer or two. It is a book to take note of and to have, for both the communications engineer and other kinds of electronics engineers who need a single-volume reference for communications. Various fragments of the book recount the history of development of particular technologies. Frequently, coverage refers to the various IEEE standards involved.
Essentially all the topics of radio are covered: transmitter and receiver circuits, radio propagation, antennas (Douglas Miron), wireless local-area networks (WLANs) and “outdoor” inter-building (Wi-Fi) networks (Daniel Dobkin), voice over Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, WiMax, WLAN security, geographic alliterative design of comm systems (cost, coverage, capacity, complexity, and C/I (carrier/interference ratio), including their implementation, testing and optimization; generations of cellular mobile radio, mobile ad hoc (no fixed networking structure) networks, wireless sensor and industrial networks, software-defined radio, RFID, ultrawideband (UWB) spectrum radio and U.S. regulations, and direct-sequence and multiband UWB.
Cognitive radio is (p 583) “the convergence of the many pagers, PDAs, cell phones, and other single-purpose gadgets we use today.” It is where artificial intelligence, DSP, and radio come together. Several chapters cover it. This includes not only adaptive capabilities of radios to find the best frequencies to use (“spectrum management”) but also the ability to interface to a wide variety of networks and to optimize network resources, with a versatile user interface.
By Chapter 28 (p 707), the focus again becomes more electronics-oriented, with direct-sequence and frequency-hopping spread spectrum circuit considerations. The next chapter, on RF power amplifiers, has some welcomed circuit diagrams. So does phase-locked loop techniques in the subsequent chapter, with charge pumps and dead zones, and we’re back to electronics. The jω-axis of the s domain appears, along with some transistor circuits. Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing ends the book.
The paperback comes with some extras, such as additional downloadable selections through a free “Newnes online membership,” and the CD included in the back of the book. It includes folders containing four calculation spreadsheets, 15 MathCAD worksheets (mostly for RF circuit or antenna design), two operator design and financial models (in *.xls), and a Winzipped file containing a long list of what look like antenna-oriented topics that can be opened as text files and which contain various somewhat simple equations and algorithms.
In summary, this book makes for a good reference on communications, though with its broad coverage it lacks depth in some places. Other books cover each topic more deeply, but this one provides a broad overview for the engineer who needs to see the big picture in wireless technology and who wants some exposure to its engineering content. Additionally, the book has an emphasis on emerging wireless technology which even the communications engineer might profit by reading. The CD contents can also save time and effort for wireless-communications engineers.
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