Kinecting the (radio) Universe: building an interactive radio telescope exhibit
Today, the biggest radio telescopes ever imagined are about to begin construction in Western Australia and southern Africa, the Square Kilometre Array or SKA telescopes for short.
Radio telescope arrays like the SKA telescopes use interferometry to combine signals from multiple antennas to create an image of the sky, but Interferometry is a hard concept to grasp and can be quite abstract. Through use of a physical (or virtual) interface that allows users to explore how changes to the physical makeup of a telescope array alter the received image, key concepts of interferometry and the reasoning behind radio telescope design become clearer.
The project aim is to create the software behind an engaging and easy to use SKA display suitable for public events/expo booths that demonstrates:
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Why the SKA is made up of multiple antennas
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Why SKA antennas will be placed in a specific arrangement
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Why radio telescope data (images) look the way they do
The model will act as an interactive display that communicates SKA design, will demonstrate the capability of the SKA in Australia, as well as communicating key concepts about radio astronomy.
The software is a web-app based adaptation of the open source Friendly VRI to take input from a visual sensor on the physical location of SKA antennas from a physical model to display the resulting imaging capability of that antenna configuration.
This particular project will be to connect the input from a Kinect sensor, determining the position of antenna stations in a visual field, to the Friendly VRI web app, allowing a physical exhibition to function rather than a purely web-based application.
Client
Contact: Kirsten Gottschalk (ICRAR/UWA) George Heald (CSIRO)
Phone: 6488 7771
Email: [email protected] [email protected]
Preferred contact: Email
Location: Perth, UWA campus and CSIRO Kensington.
IP Exploitation Model
The IP exploitation model requested by the Client is: Creative Commons (open source) http://creativecommons.org.au/
Department of Computer Science & Software Engineering
The University of Western Australia
Last modified: 18 June 2021
Modified By: Michael Wise
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