Captures a wide range of radio waves
Photographer: Johan Bodell/Chalmers University of Technology
The Band 1 receiver captures a wide range of radio waves. A radio telescope with a dish antenna needs one or more feeds to guide radio waves with a wide range of frequencies up to the receiver equipment. The Band 1 feed has a curved profile with four ridges on the inside. This Quadridge design was be adapted to SKA project requirements using mathematics, physics and optimisation algorithms, explains Jonas Flygare, PhD student at Chalmers: “We determined the feed’s curved lines using algorithms that stochastically search for those shapes that best receive the radio waves, given our specifications. To find the optimum design you need to simulate a great number of different shapes of the antenna. The feed’s performance on the telescope has been evaluated together with EMSS Antennas in South Africa, and with a system simulator developed by Marianna Ivashina and colleagues at the Department of Electrical Engineering at Chalmers."
