IEEE Industrial Tour to GMRT

IEEE SB NITW

Winter Industrial tour 2009

Our industrial tour was to GMRT observatory (Giant MetreWave Radio Telescope) set up by TATA institute for Fundamental Research (TIFR). It is situated in a village called Khodad, which is 2 hours from Pune.

The first programme on the schedule was 2 hours of trekking onto a steep hill. It was a very effortful and exhausting trek but the view from the top of that hill was worth it, as we could see most of the antennas of the GMRT neatly spread out in the entire village.

After reaching the observatory, Mr.J.K.Solanky, Mr.Shindey and Mr.Patil (electronic engineers), welcomed us all and gave a brief introduction about the observatory. Then proceeded to show one of the antennas and explain the working and specialities of GMRT.

TIFR also has a balloon facility in Hyderabad which is essentially for X-ray astronomy. GMRT is a radio interferometer and consists of 30 parabolic, steerable dishes, each of 45m diameters. These 30 antennas are spread over the village forming a Y-shape (West, east and south), connected through power and optical fibre cables (with tilt meter system). They are centralised and controlled from the control room of the institute. A single dish can weigh about 120-130 tons. A low cost design has been implemented for each dish, such that they can withstand wind speeds up to 50 kmph. Each dish can elevate from 18 degrees from the ground to 95 degrees and can rotate upto 270 degrees in the azimuth level. It uses 6 servo motors for these rotations.

GMRT operates for low frequencies ranging from 150MHz to 1450 MHz. It is a national facility and astronomers across the globe can also use the GMRT. The signals are obtained and passed through the filtering processes and finally fed into software called Astronomical Image Processing Software (AIPS). Then we get a false colour image. The whole process can take from few hours to around 1.5 years based on the characteristics and validity of the signals.

Mr.Shindey and Mr.Patil then dwelled more into electronics and explained the complete working of the GMRT. They also explained the difference between a planetarium and a radio telescope. The former is concerned only with optics and images.

GMRT has produced around 400 images till now, some of objects as far as 1.5 million light years! Mr.Solanky concluded by saying that radio astronomy is a means of communication with the universe. He also informed us that TIFR encourages young enthusiasts, researchers and aspiring astronomers to work with them. All they have got to do is identify themselves and prove the genuineness of their exuberance.

It was a very enlightening and informative visit for the students.