López-Pérez JA, Tercero-Martínez F, Serna-Puente JM, Vaquero-Jiménez B, Patino-Esteban M, García-Carreño P, González-García J, García-Pérez Ó, Beltrán-Martínez FJ, Albo-Castaño C, Gallego-Puyol JD, López-Fernández I, Díez-González C, Malo-Gómez I, Barbas-Calvo L, de Vicente-Abad P, López-Fernández JA. A Tri-Band Cooled Receiver for Geodetic VLBI.
SENSORS 2021;
21:s21082662. [PMID:
33920073 PMCID:
PMC8069004 DOI:
10.3390/s21082662]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/29/2021] [Revised: 04/06/2021] [Accepted: 04/07/2021] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
This paper shows a simultaneous tri-band (S: 2.2–2.7 GHz, X: 7.5–9 GHz and Ka: 28–33 GHz) low-noise cryogenic receiver for geodetic Very Long Baseline Interferometry (geo-VLBI) which has been developed at Yebes Observatory laboratories in Spain. A special feature is that the whole receiver front-end is fully coolable down to cryogenic temperatures to minimize receiver noise. It was installed in the first radio telescope of the Red Atlántica de Estaciones Geodinámicas y Espaciales (RAEGE) project, which is located in Yebes Observatory, in the frame of the VLBI Global Observing System (VGOS). After this, the receiver was borrowed by the Norwegian Mapping Autorithy (NMA) for the commissioning of two VGOS radiotelescopes in Svalbard (Norway). A second identical receiver was built for the Ishioka VGOS station of the Geospatial Information Authority (GSI) of Japan, and a third one for the second RAEGE VGOS station, located in Santa María (Açores Archipelago, Portugal). The average receiver noise temperatures are 21, 23, and 25 Kelvin and the measured antenna efficiencies are 70%, 75%, and 60% in S-band, X-band, and Ka-band, respectively.
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