Digital Signal Processing

Books on Telecommunications

DIGITAL SIGNAL PROCESSING

THOMAS J. CAVICCHI John Wiley & Sons, 1999

Over the years some excellent books have introduced into digital signal processing (DSP) readers with different background ranging from undergraduate and graduate students to scientists and engineers interested to the field. Digital Signal Processing by Thomas J. Cavicchi is a well organized and clearly written textbook delivered by an experienced teacher. His enthusiasm leads the reader into the DSP and the wide number of different applications where the DSP is often used to process samples of continuous-time signals. When a DSP practitioner needs to move into the application, the accuracy is in order. The author covers all the topics with perhaps excessive details. The extra steps in analytical derivations are included to lead the reader into DSP. The reader is motivated to be accurate by several examples and exercises where the use of Matlab/Simulink is an essential part. This practicing with DSP is a way to fascinate the reader and to “bring the formulas into life”! Many’ pictorial examples that arise from the teaching experience of the author are helpfhl fbr the inexperienced readers to understand. The first two chapters of the 800 pages book of Thomas J. Cavicchi provide the motivation and the basic synthetic review of continuous-time and discrete-time signal and systems. Examples are chosen to help the reader to review the essential topics. After the z transform and difference equations, chapter 4 introduces continuous- and discrete-time transforms and motivates the readers about the need to handle different transforms (and domains) in the field of DSP. Properties of the transforms are discussed

in chapter 5 , each one is illustrated by a pertinent example. In chapter 6 signal processing of sampled and continuous-time data are dealt with. The extensive use of the DFT in DSP is revised in chapter 7 together with the basics on sampling rate conversion. Chapters 8 and 9 represent two well organized sections of the book dealing with the IIR and FIR filter design. Implementation issues and quantization effects are considered as well. The last c h a p ter covers in perhaps too concise a manner (about 100 pages) quite a large part of the statistical signal processing: review of random process and estimation theory, parametric and non-parametric methods for spectral estimation, mean square estimation (deconvolution, prediction), adaptive filters. In conclusion, the book should not be seen as a quick reference to DSP but as a first-level textbook on DSP. It can be adopted by teachers as a reference text at undergraduatejgraduate levels (teachers can find many interesting examples to introduce different DSP topics). It is fbr the scientists that would like to find the answers to their curiosity by being led into DSP. Umberto Spagnolini Dept of Electronics and Information Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy