A Silent Isolation Room For Satellites
“More than 1,000 working satellites orbit Earth. As space becomes increasingly crowded, there’s a greater chance that the satellites’ radio signals could overlap. To avoid that problem, which disrupts communications, satellite antennas must transmit only within a narrow frequency band.”
”The radio frequency anechoic chamber at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) is one of the best places in the world to accurately calibrate antennas. A steel Faraday cage surrounding the chamber blocks interference from external sources, such as Wi-Fi and broadband networks. Inside, foam pyramids stop a satellite’s own radio waves from bouncing around, to ensure that a receiver in the chamber measures only the signals coming directly from the antenna and not reflections. (The pyramids dissipate the signals as they travel from tip to base.) Engineers then use the recorded transmission patterns to adjust, and sometimes rebuild, the antenna. After all, if a satellite fails in space, there’s little anyone can do.”
Source:
http://www.popsci.com/article/technology/silent-isolation-room-satellites
That's impressive.
ReplyDeleteLen Smith I worked for a telco equipment vendor with one of these in their lab to determine the EMF they produced on their own. I was told that spending a lot of time in these rooms would cause severe headaches. Maybe it was their way of keeping the interns from using the rooms for taking naps...
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