This book has grown out of our teaching and research activities in the field of digital signal processing. It is designed, primarily, as a text for a senior or first-year graduate-level course. The notes on which this book is based have been used for a one-semester introductory course in MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering as well as for a continuing education course at Bell Laboratories. The notes were also used for three years in a condensed two-week summer course at MIT and, in later stages of development, at a number of universities around the country for one-semester courses.

It is assumed that the reader has a background of advanced calculus, including an introduction to complex variable theory and an exposure to linear system theory for continuous-time signals, including Laplace and Fourier transforms, as taught in most electrical and mechanical engineering curricula. With this background the book is self-contained. In particular, it assumes no prior experience with discrete-time signals, z-transforms, discrete Fourier transforms, and the like.