Skip to main content
Flying WV
West Virginia University Radio Astronomy Instrumentation Laboratory

Lane Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering

Instruments that listen to the distant universe

RAIL builds telescopes, analog front ends, and digital systems for radio surveys. Our science spans cosmology, fast radio bursts, and pulsars.

Explore our work Meet the lab

69

Publications

4

Places we work

49

Free lessons published

Research and engineering

We build the systems behind wide-field radio telescopes

We follow signals from the antenna feed through the computing systems that turn raw voltages into astronomical measurements.

Hardware

Capture faint signals

Low-noise analog front ends, calibration, clock distribution, and field-ready telescope systems.

Computing

Process the radio sky

FPGA correlators, high-throughput networking, control software, and analysis pipelines.

Discovery

Measure the universe

Cosmology with neutral hydrogen, fast radio burst localization, and pulsar science.

Our collaborators

Recognition RAIL members belong to the CHIME/FRB team. The team received the 2022 Berkeley Prize for Meritorious Work in Astronomy.

The lab

Who works here

All lab members

Kevin M. Bandura, Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering

Adjunct Professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy

kmbandura@mail.wvu.edu

Profile, publications and CV

Publications

Recent papers

All 69 publications

Science education

Teachers build radio telescopes too

Build and use a radio telescope with free activities written by educators. Find a starting point for your classroom or project.

Two DSPIRA teachers operating a small horn radio telescope in a field at dusk

Free classroom materials

The lessons and community are active

Teachers and lab contributors maintain 49 public lessons covering the astronomy, hardware, signal processing, and labs. The discussion forum and group meetings keep the collaboration open to educators, students, and independent telescope builders.

Open the lessons Teaching and program information

Join the lab

We take on undergraduate and graduate researchers every year. Write to Prof. Kevin Bandura to talk about joining.

Get in touch