Projects

RAIL is involved in various Astrophysics and Instrumentation projects and collaborations as listed below

CHIME

Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment. A novel new radio telescope built at the Dominion Astrophysical Radio Observatory (DRAO) in Penticton, BC. CHIME will map large-scale structure in neutral hydrogen - using “hydrogen intensity-mapping” - to probe Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAO) and, in turn, Dark Energy.

ICE System

The 'ICE' hardware and software framework that implements large arrays of interconnected FPGA-based data acquisition, signal processing and networking nodes economically.

HIRAX

The Hydrogen Intensity and Real-time Analysis eXperiment (HIRAX) is a new 400–800 MHz radio interferometer under development for deployment in South Africa. HIRAX will comprise 1024 six meter parabolic dishes on a compact grid and will map most of the southern sky over the course of four years. HIRAX has two primary science goals: to constrain Dark Energy and measure structure at high redshift, and to study radio transients and pulsars. HIRAX will observe unresolved sources of neutral hydrogen via their redshifted 21-cm emission line (‘hydrogen intensity mapping’).

Fast Radio Bursts

Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) are enigmatic signals of uncharacteristic brightness and peculiarly, an extragalactic origin. Our lab is invoved in the development of intrumentation for their detections including but not limited to the CHIME-FRB collaboration and the upcoming HIRAX experiment.

Research Experience for Teachers: DSPiRA

Digital Signal Processing in Radio Astronomy (DSPIRA) is an NSF Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) in Engineering and Computer Science Site at the West Virginia University Lane Department of Computer Science and Engineering. The Principal Investigators are Professors Natalia Schmid and Kevin Bandura. The GBO coordinator is Richard Prestage

DSPIRA lessons

An online repository of lesson, activities and guides on Radio AStornomy and Digital Signal Processing made by high school teachers of the DSPIRA program for classrooms.

Faculty

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Dr. Kevin Bandura

Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering
Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy

Website:
Click here

Email:
kevin [dot] bandura [at] mail [dot] wvu [dot] edu
Address:
LCSEE
109 Research Way
AERB 237
West Virginia University
Morgantown WV, 26506

Graduate Students

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Pranav

Pranav Sanghavi

Graduate Research Assistant

Fast Radio Bursts, RET-DSPIRA, CHIME/FRB, HIRAX

pranav [dot] sanghavi [at] mail [dot] wvu [dot] edu

prs0010 [at] mix [dot] wvu [dot] edu

Website

Brittany

Brittany Snyman, neé Johnstone

Graduate Research Assistant (Graduated)

LNA Design, Fabrication and Assembly

Joseph

Joseph Kania

Graduate Research Assistant

Antenna Design, CHIME Cosmology

Kholoud

Kholoud Khairy

Graduate Research Assistant

LNA Design, CHIME/FRB Outrigger Analog

Kalyani Bhopi

Kalyani Bhopi

Noise Sourse and Calibration.

Undergraduate Students

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Rhys

Rhys Lockard

Undergraduate Researcher

Antenna Design, LNA Testing, Software Defined Radio development, RFI Mitigation

Report - Rhys

Andy

Andy Dyck

Undergraduate Summer Researcher

Low cost Interferometry

Summer Project Report

Jacob

Jacob Hanni

Undergraduate Fellow Spring 2020/ NASA Space grant consortium Fellow

LNA testing, LNA assembly, Systems Engineering study array callibration using an orbital satellite

Jacob

Charlotte Alavi

Spring 2020

LNA Design

Jacob

Joseph Shephard

2021-

Antenna Design, CHIME/FRB Outrigger Antenna Assembly and Test

Ben

Benjamin Keim

2021-

Antenna Design, CHIME/FRB Outrigger Antenna Assembly and Test

madduxtesta

Maddux Testa

2021-

Horn Antenna

johnjarman

John Jarman

2021-

CHIME/FRB Outrigger Antenna Assembly and Test

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