Digitisation

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One of SARAO’s innovative engineering achievements for MeerKAT was the direct digitisation of radio frequency signals at the output of the feed/receiver subsystem – a significant departure from the traditional heterodyne systems employed on most existing radio telescopes. The design and manufacture of the MeerKAT digitizers overcame a range of engineering challenges to deliver a product that archives the scientific requirements of dynamic range, gain and phase stability, timing precision and electromagnetic interference (EMI) suppression. SARAO has completed a licence agreement with Wideband Receiver Solutions, which resulted in the commercialisation of the MeerKAT digitiser and other associated receiver technology ready for deployment within the defence, telecommunication and space sectors. SARAO is currently developing next-generation, high-bandwidth digitiser technologies for astronomy and broader applications.

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