Design and Implementation of Remote RFI Monitoring System for Ghana Radio Telescope Observatory-Nkutunse

Joseph A. K. Nsor^{1, 2,} , Abdul-Rahman Ahmed², Severin Azankpo¹, Eric Aggrey¹ and Sani Ellis Mubarak²

¹Ghana Space Science & Technology Institute, Ghana Atomic Energy Commission

²Department of Electrical/Electronic Engineering, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, College of Engineering

Cite this paper

Joseph A. K. Nsor, Abdul-Rahman Ahmed, Severin Azankpo, Eric Aggrey and Sani Ellis Mubarak. Design and Implementation of Remote RFI Monitoring System for Ghana Radio Telescope Observatory-Nkutunse. American Journal of Electrical and Electronic Engineering. 2019; 7(1):8-13. doi: 10.12691/AJEEE-7-1-2

Abstract

Radio telescope receivers are sensitive instruments designed to detect very weak signals radiating from astronomical sources. These signals travel several light years and are sometimes drain by the interference of man-made and terrestrials RFI’s. This work aims at the design of a cost-effective Radio Frequency Interference Monitoring System (RFIMS) for the Ghana Radio Astronomy Observatory at Nkutunse. The design of automated RFIMS was constructed with a log-periodic antenna for receiving the electric field being radiated, Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) to amplify the weak signals for detectability, an attenuator to control the high power interfering signals, a filter to pass frequency of interest and a spectrum analyzer as backend. Ideally, telescopes are supposed to be sited at a radio quiet environment. The implementation is to continually monitor the radio space for potential interference at the telescope site for remedial actions since it has become a global candidate site by location and necessitation.

Keywords

sensitivity, automation, interference, observatory, monitoring

Copyright

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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