MWA ARCHITECTURE

A simple-hardware, smart-software solution for radio astronomy

The MWA uses bespoke hardware to achieve its science goals. Click on the links below to learn more about the individual elements in the signal pipeline.

Antenna

Aluminium dipole antennas fitted with low noise amplifiers are used for signal detection.

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Beamformer

This hardware allows the telescope to "point" and track objects in the sky, using analog signal delays.

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Receiver

The signal data is filtered and digitised by the receiver before being sent to the correlator over fibre-optic cable.

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Beamformer Interface Unit (BFIF)

This hardware allows remote long-baseline tiles to be solar powered, and sends signal data to the receiver over fibre.

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SMART Box

Converting RF signal from copper to fibre for long-distance transport.

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