🚁PRIAM

Precision Radio Instrument for Antenna Measurements

What is PRIAM?

PRIAM is an external drone-based antenna calibrator designed specifically for 21-cm cosmology and low-frequency radio astronomy. With careful signal modulation techniques and error mitigation it is capable of extremely accurate magnitude measurements. There has also been significant research on performing phase measurements but those details are not included here. Its primary use-case and chief science motivator is the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA).

What you get from this GitBook

Academic papers tell you what one has done. I intend this documentation to be about how to do something like this. However, documenting something that has taken me 5 years to accomplish myself in a simple, accessible and user-friendly manner is a challenge by itself. If I am unsuccessful at effectively explaining my work here then I hope that the files and results are at the very least useful in some way.

I will endeavor to make everything on this project open-source right from the mechanical components and electrical circuits to the code. I sincerely hope these resources are put to good use one way or another. Nothing is expected in return besides customary acknowledgements.

There are two repositories for this project: this one has all the codes, and this one has all the 3D/CAD stuff. More specifically, these repositories contain:

• Source code for SDR transmitter and receiver

• Source code for the autonomy pipeline

• Source code for the scripts that generate flight paths for the drone

• 3D models of the entire drone including custom parts

• Complete PCB design and simulation files for all the custom RF circuitry including a BOM

• Data analysis (TBD)