Preface

Welcome to this third edition of Antennas and Propagation for Wireless Communication Systems. This book has grown out of the work that my co-author and I have conducted in the wireless communication field in roles across industry, academia, regulation and policy. It is intended for use for both educational and reference purposes, including by:

• Students on masters-level and final-year undergraduate courses who are specialising in communication systems.
• PhD and postdoctoral researchers in wireless communication systems.
• Industrial engineers who are designing, deploying and operating wireless systems or components.
• Researchers and industrialists in other fields who are seeking a quick but detailed reference to the fundamentals and applications of wireless systems.

It is therefore not only for specialists in the sometimes arcane field of antennas and propagation, but for all wireless communication engineers. Our main motivation has been to create a book which covers a range of disciplines, from electromagnetics to statistics, which are necessary in order to understand the implications of the wireless channel – including both propagation and antenna effects – on system performance. At the same time we have tried to avoid putting people off by excessive focus on complex mathematics. Although in this edition – and by popular request – we have covered Maxwell’s equations, in practice very few of the practical problems at the level of systems in this field require those equations for their solution, so these can be skipped by most readers. It is nevertheless important that the material is underpinned by basic physical principles, and this is the purpose of the first five chapters of the book. Nevertheless, we have not avoided the use of mathematics where it is actually useful in illustrating concepts or in providing practical means of analysis or simulation.

We have also attempted to bring together reference material which is useful in this field into a single, accessible volume, including a few previously unpublished research results.

The following notation is used throughout the text:

• Scalar variables are denoted by Times Roman italics, such as x and y.
• Physical vector quantities (i.e. those having magnitude and direction in three-dimensional physical space) are denoted by Times Roman boldface, such as E and H.
• Unit vectors (those with a magnitude of 1) additionally have a circumflex, such as and .
• Column vectors are denoted by lowercase Sans Serif boldface, such as x and r, while matrix quantities are denoted by uppercase Sans Serif boldface, such as X and R.
• The time or ensemble average of a random variable x is denoted by E[x].
• The logarithm to base 10 is written log, while the natural logarithm is ln.
• Units are in square brackets, e.g. [metres].
• References are written in the form [first author, year].
• Important new terms are usually introduced in italics.
• Equation numbers are given in round parentheses, e.g. (1.27)

Each chapter includes a list of references; wherever possible we have referred to journal articles and books, since these are most easily and widely available, but some more recent work only exists in conference proceedings.

The book has a long history: it grew first out of my teaching and research at the University of Surrey and out of my previous experience in companies such as Philips, Ascom and Motorola and was published in 1999. It was used as a course text in many undergraduate and postgraduate courses as well as in industrial short courses around the world, so it has been thoroughly road-tested. It also appears on the desks of many practicing engineers, and I have been hugely encouraged by the worldwide ‘family’ of readers who have got in touch to express their gratitude and the impact on their work – as well as to request clarifications, additions – and corrections!

Spurred on by this positive reaction, and in response to the pace of change, we published a second edition in 2007 (which built on our work together on designing and implementing practical systems at Cellular Design Services and Red-M) and have been pleased to assemble this third edition in the course of 2023–4.

I had always hoped that, by focusing on principles, this book could have a long shelf life. But I never suspected that it would be still in print and finding new readers more than a quarter century after its initial publication. Despite the fast pace of development of wireless communication system technology, the fundamental importance of antennas and propagation has continued. All wireless systems are subject to the variations imposed by the wireless channel, and a good understanding of these variations is needed to answer basic questions such as ‘How far does it go?’, ‘How fast can I transmit data?’ and ‘How many users can I support?’. This book aims to equip the reader with the knowledge and understanding to answer these questions for a very wide range of wireless systems.

This longevity is just as well, since following the second edition’s publication in 2007 my day jobs at successively Real Wireless, Small Cell Forum, Google, Ofcom and the UK’s Department for Science, Innovation and Technology meant that updates had to wait for years longer than intended. I pay special tribute to my co-author Dr. Alejandro Aragón-Zavala, for remaining committed to the project and cajoling me into action – in the nicest possible way.

There was much new ground to cover. Mobile systems have seen the introduction and proliferation of a fourth generation and the deployment and take-up of a fifth generation; a sixth generation is now being developed. All of this to feed an explosion of the use of mobile broadband data which has brought an enormous range of new services and devices. Non-geostationary satellite systems were in vogue when the book was first written in the late 1990s: they then became quiescent for many years but have now seen massive deployments. Small cell deployments have gone from being a long-anticipated concept to being the standard way in which networks deepen their coverage and capacity levels. Technologically, the adaptive antenna systems, which were a rather niche interest at the time of the first edition, have expanded in successive waves culminating in the enormous potential of massive MIMO systems as perhaps the single most important technological development to meet mobile data demand growth. These are a perfect example of the importance of a deep understanding of both antenna and propagation effects.

To cover all of these developments, we have made major changes to this third edition. The text has been updated throughout to reflect the latest developments, and many new propagation models have been inserted. Brand new chapters have been added on antenna applications, short range and enclosed space systems and 5G mobile applications. The chapter on future aspects (Chapter 22) has been completely rewritten to account for emerging technologies which may form part of 6G and other future wireless systems. Major additions have been made to the adaptive antennas chapter to reflect the development of massive MIMO. Finally, additional end-of-chapter problems have been included to reflect the book’s widespread adoption as a course text.

Thanks to many colleagues at the industry and academic institutions where I have worked for supporting this work in many ways, notably those in the Smart Internet Lab at the University of Bristol (Dimitra Simeonidou, Mark Beach and Geoff Hilton) and colleagues at King’s College London. Lastly, thanks to the patient staff at Wiley for believing in this book over more than 25 years.

Updates and further information regarding this book, including presentation slides and bonus resources, are available from the following website: http://www.simonsaunders.com/apbook

A manual providing solutions to the end-of-chapter problems is also available to verified course tutors.

Comments, suggestions and questions are gratefully received via email to apbook@simonsaunders.com

Since the second edition published 17 years ago, I thought that our work had covered sufficient topics to be up to date for a reasonable time – I was wrong. LTE was under development, 3G had been successfully deployed and many GSM networks were still around. Our vision of what was going to happen in the near future drastically changed, and some applications that seemed perhaps unrealistic back in 2007 became a reality now, especially with the deployment of massive MIMO techniques and other methods employed in 5G and planned for 6G networks. Simon has already mentioned all that is new and has changed in our third edition, so there is not much for me to add on that one!

This book has been used for many years as an essential reference in many of the Tecnológico de Monterrey Campus. I have personally used it in various undergraduate courses and also as a reference for my MSc and PhD students. This enabled our book to win a national price for excellence in book writing – Premio Rómulo Garza – back in 2015...