This book will appeal to the practicing engineer as a reference and a continuing education tool and to the academic community as a textbook.

Role of Software Radio Book in Industry

My discussions with industry representatives indicate a high level of interest among practicing engineers in a single, concise book that unites the fundamental concepts of modern radio design. The accompanying short course is based on the book and ensures a thorough and detailed understanding of software radio technology. This pairing of a definitive software radio book and a high-level short course is beneficial to the continuing education of several different types of engineers:

• RF engineers hoping to understand how new digital technologies are changing traditional approaches to radio design;

• experienced computer or DSP engineers who are entering the field of radio communications for the first time (due to the tremendous demand, the wireless field is attracting a large number of practicing engineers with little or no radio experience who need to understand the relationship between various system components);

• systems engineers hoping to gain a detailed understanding of the radio link.

Role of Software Radio Book in University Curricula

Many electrical engineering departments currently offer courses in radio engineering that emphasize circuit level design using analog components. Within the next few years, universities will need to update these courses to reflect the paradigm shift that is underway in industry. While an understanding of RF components will be required, the new courses must place a greater emphasis on the interaction between the analog and digital components of the radio and the signal processing operations to achieve an overall systems perspective. As the first software radio textbook, this book will have a chance to become a standard text on modern radio design.

Within the university environment, this book could be used as a text for either a rigorous graduate course in radio communications engineering or a design oriented senior elective as described below.

• Graduate course on radio communications engineering - The best university graduate programs combine a rigorous theoretical foundation with the opportunity to design and build real systems, and this book will provide a text for a graduate communications engineering course in this mold. While there is very little overlap between this book and traditional communication texts on modulation theory, detection and estimation, coding theory, and information theory, the emphasis is on rigorous development of the subject matter rather than mere description of current technology. Topics such as synchronization, digital downconversion, adaptive signal processing, and power management are treated in a rigorous, quantitative manner and are combined into a single text for the first time.

• Senior design elective - A substantial number of electrical engineering seniors have taken the introductory communications and signal processing courses needed to approach the subject matter, and there is significant interest by both accreditation bodies (such as ABET) and undergraduate engineering students in hands-on design experiences. When combined with a laboratory, a course based on this textbook could qualify as a "capstone design course," which meets ABET requirements. Such a course could serve as an alternative to the analog component based radio engineering courses currently offered by many universities.