Five motifs side by side. 1. A receiver from above. The horn at the top emerges like a funnel from the base. A black box is attached to the right-hand side, with cables coming out of it. 2. Readout of various measured values as bars, waves, and levels. Measurements are displayed in GHz, ns, Kelvin, and mbar, among other units. 3. The MPG SKA Prototype telescope in the Karoo Desert in South Africa. The white telescope faces forward with its dish and stands out against a clear sky and bright desert ground. 4. A measuring device from the MPIfR laboratory showing a wave. Various tools are visible in the foreground. 5. Closeup of an EDGAR server cluster with black and yellow cables running above rows of fans.

Electronics Division

Welcome to the Electronics division of the MPIfR.

The division was founded with the primary responsibility for the operation, maintenance and continuous improvement of the astronomical radio receiver systems for the 100 m radio telescope at Effelsberg. Over the past 50 years, the scope of the division's activities has broadened considerably and today it is heavily involved in new and established observatories around the world, with a continued focus on the associated astronomical radio receiver systems.

Furthermore, the division has integrated expertise in all aspects of astronomical radio receivers, from passive analogue RF design, active RF components (such as low noise amplifiers, LNAs), mechanical and cryogenic design, analogue and digital control, digitisation and high-performance data transfer, and computing (GPU and FPGA based).

The department is divided into five groups, which cover all the necessary expertise while remaining closely interlinked on projects and technological developments:

  • Systems Operation Group
  • Receiver Systems Group
  • Technology Group
  • Project Group
  • Backend Development Group

 

A cross-section of a three-band receiver is in the middle of the frame. There is a circle to the left with the letters K, Q and W inside. An arrow points towards the receiver. From the receiver, three arrows point towards three separate circles on the right. A red circle has the letter K inside, a green circle has the letter Q inside and a blue circle has the letter W inside.

VLBI 3-band Receiver

A novel design for a three-band VLBI receiver with unmatched sensitivity.

Four cartoony telescope antennas with a clock symbol below the dish. In the middle between them is a large clock that is connected to the four antennas with red wire.

TFR – Time and Frequency Reference

Distributing time and frequency over long distances while providing an option that compensates for offsets.

A highly intricate tree structure diagram.

The EDGAR Cluster

The next generation of high-throughput, flexible compute infrastructure supporting both real-time and offline data analysis.

On the left, a design of a receiver is shown. An arrow to the right leads to the built receiver. Another arrow in turn leads to 66 receivers. Below, a cross-section of the receiver and two graphs can be seen.

MeerKAT Band 5b Receiver

66 receivers in only 18 months.

A view of a large row of server racks extending down a long corridor.

MeerKAT Backends

4 instruments for the MeerKAT digital backend.

ALMA Band 2 LNA

ALMA Band 2 LNA

145 LNAs for ALMA Band 2.

The CryoPAF Project

The CryoPAF Project

A Phased Array Feed overcoming most limitations of classical receivers.

The logo of mad max shows the initials M as a frequency spectrum. Between the words mad and max, there are three rings. The logo appears to pass through the rings.

MADMAX

A dielectric haloscope searching for axion dark matter in unexplored energy ranges.

A number of people whose silhouettes are depicted in cut-out form. They are shown in different colors and grouped in various ways.

Team

All members of our 5 groups together in one place.
4 interlocking puzzle pieces surround a black circle with "Systems Operation" written inside. Clockwise, the puzzle pieces say: "Embedded Systems", "Digital Infrastructure", "Receiver Systems", "Monitoring Control". The pieces are yellow, green, red and blue.

Systems Operation

Integration, operation, asset-tracking, digitization and more.
Receiver Systems

Receiver Systems

Developing astronomical receiver systems worldwide.
Technology Group

Technology Group

Development and production of receiver subsystems at MPIfR.
Project Group

Project Group

Providing the knowledge base and design guidelines for the design of larger receiver projects.
Backend Development

Backend Development

Designing and developing advanced backend hardware and software systems that power radio telescopes worldwide.
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