Broadcast Radio Telescopes

Radio telescope observatories commonly utilize RF over Fiber (RFoF) technologies to connect their large dish antennas to the control room while avoiding digital signal processing. This approach enables them to harness the full bandwidth, where noise figure and linearity are critical factors.

An RFoF link offers a solution for converting electric signals to optical and back to electric. It consists of a Transmitter unit (Tx) that transforms the analog RF input signal into an optically modulated signal, and a Receiver unit (Rx) that converts the optical signal back into an electrical RF signal. The optical modulation operates at wavelengths of 1310 nm for links below 10 GHz and 1550 nm for higher frequencies. Other wavelengths may be employed for specific applications. The optical signal is transmitted from the Tx module to the Rx module over single-mode optical fiber, which is typically sourced as a third-party product outside of RFOptic’s offerings.

RFOptic provides fiber optic solutions for radio telescopes and astronomical applications, including RFoF subsystems featuring 6 GHz and 18 GHz links, as well as other specialized solutions. Our systems are designed for transmitting RF signals with frequency ranges from 1 to 18 GHz over fiber while ensuring low spurious levels and exceptional linearity, suitable for applications such as VGOS radio telescopes.

Additionally, our 18 GHz (HSFDR) solution delivers broadband fiber optic links specifically tailored to meet the signal conditioning requirements of telescopes and radio astronomy.