Equipment & facilities

Anechoic Chamber and RF measurement facilities

Our microwave anechoic chamber has a volume of one hundred cubic metres, capable of performing far-field and near-field radiation measurements, can automatically measure up to 26GHz. 

In addition, a comprehensive selection of RF and microwave-based apparatuses are available to support indoor and outdoor channel measurements using 60GHz transceivers. MIMO antenna test facilities are supported with RF front end and FPGA modems.

Picosatellite (Engineering model)

This picosat is an engineering model of 2p-satellite developed in-house at Bradford-Renduchintala Centre for Space AI. It is composed of five different segments:

• A 3D-printed 2p-satellite frame structure 
• An on-board computer in the form of Raspberry Pi Zero
• A Payload board holding different sensors such as camera, temperature sensor, GPS module and accelerometer etc
• Communications board responsible for managing satellite radio operations using transceiver and Antenna
• EPS system for satellite power management which includes battery, charger module and solar cells etc

In-House Satellite Ground Station

Our in-house satellite ground station operates in the VHF and UHF amateur satellite bands 145.80 - 146.00MHz, 435 - 438MHz and 1260-1270Mhz (u/l only). It comprises of three systems:  A fixed antenna setup consisting of pair of 3 element beam antennas set up for dual-polarisation with a gain of 5dBi  and beamwidth of about 120^o, facilitating very good coverage on almost any bearing.  A steerable high gain VHF/UHF beam antenna utilising a Yeasu G-5500 positioner for accurate tracking with horizon-to-horizon coverage. A portable setup with medium gain beam antenna on lightweight positioner and tripod which can be utilised in the field. At the heart of these systems are ICOM dual band, full duplex, all-mode transceivers (IC-9700, 821 & 820) with a preset maximum output power of 10W to support both voice and data (1200 PSK and FSK) and 9600 GMSK. The radios are connected to PC based software for satellite prediction, doppler correction, positioner control and data collection/decoding.

u-blox GNSS Module 

The u-blox EVK-8/EVK-M8 GNSS evaluation kit, donated by u-blox, enables simple evaluation of the high performance u-blox 8 and u-blox M8 positioning technology. The built-in USB interface provides both power supply and high-speed data transfer, and eliminates the need for an external power supply. u-blox 8/M8 evaluation kits are compact, and their user-friendly interface and power supply make them ideally suited for use in laboratories, vehicles and outdoor locations. Furthermore, they can be used with a PDA or a notebook PC, making them the perfect companion through all stages of design-in projects. The kits are to be used with a PC via USB interface. USB drivers are provided with the software package.

GNU Radio

The Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP) platform can be used for a wide range of RF applications from DC to 6 GHz. A USRP Software Defined Radio Device provides a software-defined RF architecture to design, prototype, and deploy wireless systems with custom signal processing. Hardware options range from low-cost to high-performance radios with large, open FPGAs. It supports Python, C, LabVIEW or open-source code.

The USRP Bus Series provides a fully integrated, single board, Universal Software Radio Peripheral platform with continuous frequency coverage from 70 MHz – 6 GHz. The TwinRX daughterboard for the USRP software-defined radios is a dual-channel superheterodyne receiver that offers wide dynamic range and accurate phase synchronization with LO sharing for spectrum monitoring and direction-finding applications.

Cleanroom

The cleanroom facility (Monmouth) for picosatellite platform development at Bradford-Renduchintala Centre for Space AI is an enclosed space in which airborne particulates, contaminants, and pollutants are kept within strict limits. The cleanroom is used in the manufacture and servicing of hardware such as integrated circuits (ICs) and hard drives and in the same way for small satellites to keep the hardware clean from potential hazardous dust particles and also control the temperature and humidity of the development environment.

Electronics Lab

The Electrical and Electronics Lab facility provides a wide range of hardware and software facilities for undergraduate and postgraduate programme delivery including both analogue and digital electronics kits, power supplies, oscilloscopes, soldering equipment and accessories, FPGA boards, microcontrollers such as Arduino, Raspberry Pi and most popular sensors for lab exercises and projects. A suite of software packages are also installed to support MEMS development.

Teaching Lab

This teaching lab is dedicated for delivering undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, CPD and training courses at the space centre. It houses a state-of-the-art interactive smart screen, a VZ-3neo.UHD visualizer system. A suite of industrial grade and open-source software packages are installed for system analysis and performance evaluation.