Argus
Overview: Argus is an experimental "omnidirectional radio telescope," designed to achieve a instantaneous field of view covering most of the sky at L-band. Applications include searches for transient signals due to astrophysical and technological sources. The system is located on the West Campus of the Ohio State University. It was designed and built by S. Ellingson (now with Virginia Tech) and G. Hampson (now with CSIRO/ATNF) with effort from many graduate and undergraduate students and a local volunteer organization called NAAPO (see below). Funding has been received from the SETI Institute and local benefactors.
This page is http://www.ece.vt.edu/swe/argus/
Maintainer: S.W. Ellingson
Last Update: Feb 08, 2008
Introductory Information
- Most Current Description: S.W. Ellingson, G.A. Hampson, and R.K. Childers, "Argus: An L-Band All-Sky Astronomical Surveillance System" (PDF), IEEE Trans. Antennas & Propagation, Vol. 56, No. 2, February 2008, pp. 294-302.
- Most Recent Results: See above.
- The Big Idea: R.S. Dixon, "Argus: A Next-Generation Omnidirectional Radio Telescope", in Proc. High-Sensitivity Radio Astronomy, Jodrell Bank / Nuffield Radio Astronomy Laboratories, University of Manchester, England, January 1996. Reprinted in N. Jackson and R.J. Davies, High-Sensitivity Radio Astronomy, Cambridge University Press, 1997, pp. 260-8.
- Why Search for Radio Transients? S. Ellingson, "Wide Field Searches for Radio Transients," (PDF) April 2004. Addresses astrophysical transients.
- Information for Laymen: A local volunteer group known as NAAPO participates in the development of Argus. At their web site, you can find some less-technical information.
Warning! Here are a few articles by others, addressing Argus. Please note: popular science writers, although generally well-meaning, are typically not scientists and usually refuse to provide copy so as to permit correction of errors before publication. So, it would be a big mistake to interpret anything in these articles as authoritative. Nevertheless, they are cited here for historical reasons and possible use in understanding context.
- S. Nadis, "Miniature antennas will eavesdrop on the Universe", Nature, 405, 722 (15 June 2000).
- A.M. MacRobert, "The Allen Telescope Array: SETI's Next Big Step", Sky & Telescope, July 2000. (Argus is described toward the end of the web version of this article.)
- D. Sorid, "Argus Expands the Search for Life", Space.com (June 9, 2000).
Technical and Scientific Documents
In reverse chronological order.
- S.W. Ellingson, G.A. Hampson, and R.K. Childers, "Argus: An L-Band All-Sky Astronomical Surveillance System" (PDF), IEEE Trans. Antennas & Propagation, Vol. 56, No. 2, February 2008, pp. 294-302.
- S.W. Ellingson and G.A. Hampson, "Detection and Localization of L-Band Satellites Using an Antenna Array," (PDF) 2004 IEEE Int'l Ant. and Prop. Sym., Monterey, CA, June 2004. See also the presentation slides.
- S.W. Ellingson and G.A. Hampson, "Argus: An L-Band Array for Detection of Astronomical Transients," (PDF) 2003 IEEE Int'l Ant. and Prop. Sym., Columbus, OH, June 2003 (3:256-9). This is the presentation, which is shows the current hardware. The actual paper (PDF) is also useful, but describes the older, slightly different receivers.
- S.W. Ellingson, "Detection of Tones and Pulses using a Large, Uncalibrated Array", 2003 IEEE Antennas & Propagation Soc. Int'l Symposium, Columbus, OH, June 2003 (4:196-9).
- S.W. Ellingson, "What Will Argus See?" (PDF), Mar 1, 2003.
- S.W. Ellingson, "Correcting I-Q Imbalance in Direct Conversion Receivers" (PDF), Feb 10, 2003.
- S.W. Ellingson, "Testing Argus using a Spectrum Analyzer Mode" (PDF), Feb 9, 2003.
- S.W. Ellingson and G.A. Hampson, Argus Telescope Development in 2002, The Ohio State University ElectroScience Laboratory Technical Report 531393-4, Jan 2003. Note: This is a compendium of reports available in PDF form below.
- S.W. Ellingson, "A High-Resolution Survey of RFI at 1200-1470 MHz as Seen by Argus" (PDF), October 29, 2002.
- S.W. Ellingson, "RFI at SCF as Seen by Argus" (PDF), October 19, 2002.
- S.W. Ellingson, "A Survey of 1200-1800 MHz Using a Discone and a Spiral with the Argus Front End" (PDF), October 12, 2002.
- G. Hampson, "Possible Ideas on a New DCR Backplane" (PDF), October 8, 2002.
- G. Hampson, "Initial Argus Measurement Results" (PDF), October 8, 2002. (Reports on some testing of the DCR/ANP signal path.)
- G. Hampson, "Argus Hardware Prost-Processor Ideas" (PDF), October 4, 2002.
- S. Ellingson, "The Argus 2002 Architecture" (PDF), October 1, 2002.
- G. Hampson and S. Ellingson, "A New Argus Direct Conversion Receiver and Digital Array Receiver/Processor" (PDF), Design Report, September 27, 2002; Revised Oct 3, 2002.
- S.W. Ellingson, "A Low-Cost L-Band Line Amplifier (Rev. 1)" (PDF), Design Report, October 9, 2002.
- J. Tarter, J. Dreher, S.W. Ellingson, and W.J. Welch, "Recent Progress and Activities in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI)", Chapter 36 of Review of Radio Science, 1999-2002, W. Ross Stone (Ed.), IEEE Press/John Wiley, 2002. (Includes discussion of the omnidirectional radio telescope concept.)
- S.W. Ellingson, "A 1-GHz Highpass PHEMT Low-Noise Amplifier (Rev. 1)" (PDF), Design Report, Oct 6, 2002.
- S.W. Ellingson, "Spectral Detection of GPS and H-I Using a Single Omnidirectional Antenna" (PDF), Informal Memo, Jan 12, 2002.
- G.A. Hampson and S.W. Ellingson, "Recent Developments in Low Cost Digital Receivers at OSU", LOFAR Workshop, MIT Haystack Observatory, October 2001.
- S. Brown, Analysis of Performance of Multiple Beam Digital Beamforming Antenna Arrays by Simulation, Ph.D. Dissertation, The Ohio State University, 2000.
- T. Alferink, A Digital Signal Processing Engine for a Large Antenna Array, Master's Thesis, The Ohio State University, 2000.
- E. Ranu, A Wideband UHF Downconverter with 5:1 Tuning Range, Master's Thesis, The Ohio State University, 2000. Related paper:
- E. Ranu and S.W. Ellingson, "A Low-Cost Wideband UHF Downconverter with 5:1 Tuning Range", IEEE Trans. Instrumentation and Measurement, Vol. 51, No. 5, Oct 2002, pp. 1080-1084.
- S.W. Ellingson and W. Cazemier, "Efficient Multibeam Synthesis with Interference Nulling for Large Arrays", IEEE Trans. Antennas and Propagation, Vol. 51, No. 3, March 2003, pp. 503-511.
- S.W. Ellingson, "Radio Source Localization Using a Small Array", The Ohio State University ElectroScience Laboratory Technical Report 531393-3, March 2000. Related documents:
- S.W. Ellingson, "Design and Evaluation of a Novel Antenna Array for Azimuthal Angle-of-Arrival Measurement", IEEE Trans. Antennas and Propagation, Vol. 49, No. 6, June 2001, pp. 971-979.
- S.W. Ellingson, "RFI Detection Using an Array," International SKA Meeting, Berkeley, CA, July 2001.
- S.W. Ellingson and G.A. Hampson, "A Subspace-Tracking Approach to Interference Nulling for Phased Array-Based Radio Telescopes", IEEE Trans. Antennas and Propagation, Vol. 50, No. 1, Jan 2002, pp. 25-30.
- G.A. Hampson, "Antenna, Complex Receiver, Digital Receiver Integration Tests," October 30, 2001. Fun with GPS and the Hydrogen Line.
- B. Baertlein, "Status Report on Antenna Development", July 1999. About the Argus planar spiral antenna element, leading to the first-generation antenna.
- S.W. Ellingson, "A Software-Defined Digital Signal Processing Architecture for Large Antenna Arrays", The Ohio State University ElectroScience Laboratory Technical Report 531393-2, March 1999. Related presentation:
- S.W. Ellingson, "A DSP Engine for a 64-Element Array," Technologies for Large Antenna Arrays, Dwingeloo, The Netherlands, April 1999.
- S.W. Ellingson and R.S. Dixon, "The OSU Omnidirectional Radio Telescope Project", The Ohio State University ElectroScience Laboratory Technical Report 531393-1, January 1999.
- H.-J. Kim, An Experimental System for Low-SNR Direction Finding at L-Band, Master's thesis. The Ohio State University, 1999.
- R.S. Dixon, "Argus with Software and Hardware Subarrays", 1kT Workshop, Sydney, Australia, December 1997.
- S.B. Brown, Radio Camera Arrays for Radio Astronomy, Master's thesis. The Ohio State University, 1993.
- J. Bolinger, A Simultaneous Multi-beam Phased Array Using Digital Processing Techniques. Master's thesis. The Ohio State University, 1988.