Due to a steady flow of requests over several years, Springer-Verlag now provides a corrected reprint of this text. It is designed to serve as a text for a first semester graduate level course for students in digital communication systems. As a pre requisite, it is presumed that the reader has an understanding of basic probability and stochastic processes. The treatment of digital communications in this book is intended to serve as an introduction to the subject. Part one is a development of the elements of statistical communication theory and radar detection. The text begins with a general model of a communication system which is extensively developed and the performance analyses of various conventional systems. The first part also serves as introductory material for the second part of the text which is a comprehensive study of the theory of transmitter optimization for coherent and noncoherent digital commu nication systems, that is, the theory of signal design.