Signals and Systems

by Alan V. Oppenheim, Alan S. Willsky, with S. Hamid

Publisher: Prentice Hall
ISBN: 0138147574

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Book Description

This authoritative book, highly regarded for its intellectual quality and contributions provides a solid foundation and life-long reference for anyone studying the most important methods of modern signal and system analysis. The major changes of the revision are reorganization of chapter material and the addition of a much wider range of difficulties.

FEATURES:

• Develops continuous-time and discrete-time concepts in parallel - highlighting the similarities and differences. E.g.:
• Ch. 1 on basic signals and system properties, Ch. 2 on linear time-invariant systems, and Ch. 3 on Fourier series representation each develop the continuous-time and discrete-time concepts in parallel.
• Ch. 9 on the Laplace Transform and Ch. 10 on the Z-transform deal with the two domains separately, but often draw parallels between results in the two domains.
• Introduces some of the important uses of the basic methods that are developed - e.g., filtering, communication, sampling, discrete-time processing of continuous-time signals, and feedback.
• NEW - A companion book contains MATLAB-based computer exercises for each topic.
• NEW - Material on Fourier analysis has been reorganized significantly to provide an easier path for the reader to master and appreciate the importance of this topic. Now represented in four chapters, each of which is far more streamlined and focused, introducing a smaller and more cohesive set of topics.
• NEW - Frequency-domain filtering is introduced very early in the development to provide a central and concrete illustration of why this topic is important and to provide some intuition with a minimal amount of mathematical preliminaries.
• NEW - Relocates coverage of Sampling before Communication. * Allows for discussion of important forms of communication, namely those involving discrete or digital signals, in which sampling concepts are intimately involved.
• NEW - Chapter-end Problems
• They provide a better balance between exercises developing basic skills and understanding ones that pursue more advanced problem-solving skills. The new edition organizes chapter-end problems into four types of sections which makes it easier for the reader to locate the problems that will best serve their purposes; and provides two types of basic problems, ones with answers (but not solutions); and ones with solutions to provide immediate feedback, while attempting to master the material.

Customer Reviews

This is one of the finest text books I have read. It is a bit difficult but that is just the nature of the subject. If you struggle with the book, get the one by Lathi to help you bridge the gap.

The book by Lathi explains some background knowledge that you are supposed to have in more details than Oppenheim. For instance, it explains the difference between zero state response and zero input response in a great detail. But Oppenheim has a few better chapters on somewhat more advanced topics, for instance on sampling. So, get both if you can. I use both book often when learning this subject.

The topics covered in signals and system are so critical and interesting. I wish I had taken such a course before. I would recommend that all engineering students take this course. This course is somewhat difficult among undergrad level courses. But there are excellent resources to help you. The two books mentioned are excellent. UC Berkely offers a free video course on this. MIT has free course material on its web site also. The one by UC Berkely is quite easy, and the one by MIT is more challenging. Do the homework offered by MIT, and they are interesting and rewarding. The one by MIT follows Oppenheim's book precisely, another benefit for self-learners.

Two years after I used this book to learn the subject, I am now doing some signal processing. I went back to this book for some information. I now appreciate more about this book. It is very clear. It may be wordy for experienced people. But you could always skip certain sections. But if a book misses some details you need, it is much worse. I only wish the author could add a chapter on DFT. I had to go to another book for DFT.

Having had this book for 2 semesters in a Signals and Systems course, I can say that it has done its job in presenting an in-depth and clear introduction to the topic. It is well-written, structured, comprehensive and has lots of challenging (and not so) exercises and examples.

A few comments on the latter: it seemed to me that the first 20 basic exercises at the end of each chapter were very basic, of the type "plug-in the formula from the table on the previous page", while the subsequent problems, especially the advanced ones, are way above the level of the former. Working out through those was meticulous, hard and very lengthy as compared to the basic stuff (the solutions provided by our instructor were of the order 1-2 typed pages per problem). Providing answers or at least general strategies would have been tremendously helpful. I am aware that there is a solutions manual, however the textbook itself is expensive enough.

The information was presented clearly, but I liked our professor's introduction to convolution more that the book's coverage. The sampling chapter was, at least to me and some of my fellows, a bit confusing and we had to, again, rely more on class notes.

Overall this is a good book, albeit very-very expensive (I was lucky enough to get a cheap Indian reprint).

This is a useful book for learning about Laplace / Fourier / Z transforms. Any electrical engineer probably will have to buy some form of this book at some point.

The chapters are well organized, and the example questions illustrate the ideas clearly.

Note that this is an international edition of the book though.