The sun emits the light and heat necessary for life on Earth. However, it also emits radiation outside the visible spectrum as well as energetic particles. These emissions can impact satellites and other man-made instruments, causing momentary failure or destruction, and even electrical blackouts. Some solar events are not typically viewable in the visible spectrum but do emit light in the radio spectrum. Because particle emissions take much longer to reach the Earth than RF, a radio telescope provides an early warning about incoming solar weather so that sensitive infrastructure including satellites and power grids can be protected. There is a lack of dedicated radio telescopes in the Northern Continental United States. This hole is to be filled by a new installation in Ionia, New York. A prototype was developed during previous projects but is not currently operational and requires additional features to be useful.

The goals of this project are getting the radio telescope online and operational with a user friendly GUI, subsystems for self-calibration, RF filtering, a visible spectrum feed, and data upload for analysis. The data is to be uploaded to stakeholder’s servers in Zurich. The end product must be remotely operable from RIT, provide accurate data, and be tolerant for environmental exposure, including tolerance of power failure without data loss.

This project is a continuation of the work done by teams P15571 and 17571. The previous teams produced a hardware solution capable of automatically tracking the sun in all seasons. Our work involves improving the reliability of the tracking system, processing collected RF signals to filter noise, adding an intuitive GUI for night-time radio astronomy, implementing data upload and backup solutions, and providing documentation for maintenance and use. At the end of the project term, the solar telescope will be fully functional and installed at the ASRAS site

Project Name

Sunspot Radio Telescope III

Project Number

P18571

Project Family

Aerospace Systems and Technology

Start Term

2171

End Term

2175

Faculty Guide

Mr. George Slack

Primary Customer

Mr. Martin Pepe

Sponsor (financial support)

ASRAS – Astronomy Section of the Rochester Academy of Science

Planning & Execution

Project Photos and Videos

Imagine RIT

Gate Reviews

Problem Definition

Systems Design

Preliminary Detailed Design

Detailed Design

Build & Test Prep

Subsystem Build & Test

Integrated System Build & Test

Customer Handoff & Final Project Documentation (Verification & Validation)