Antenna Arrays Could Replace Satellite TV Dishes 183
Zothecula writes "There was a time not so very long ago when people who wanted satellite TV or radio required dishes several feet across. Those have since been replaced by today's compact dishes, but now it looks like even those might be on the road to obsolescence. A recent PhD graduate from The Netherlands' University of Twente has designed a microchip that allows for a grid array of almost-flat antennae to receive satellite signals."
No (Score:0, Insightful)
This won't work.
Why?
Because satellite signals are extremely susceptible to atmospheric interference.
Raw size does matter here.
A larger receptor is better.
You may as well try to reproduce a high quality studio microphone with an array of dollar store clip on mics, and then toss out the typical dismissive bullshit claim of "The rest is just software!".
Where's the problem? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No (Score:2, Insightful)
does it snow a lot where you live ? If it does, can you please tell me the model of your small dish ?
Re:Where's the problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that the dish weighs 25 pounds, offers significant wind resistance, cannot be used while the vehicle is in motion, needs to be aimed at a satellite each time the RV is moved, and depends on geosynchronous satellites or continuous aiming with a servomotor. It's also ugly, but that's an aesthetic problem, not a practical one.
The advantage of phased array systems like this would be that you don't need to deploy and aim the dish once you reach your destination. You simply turn the system on, and the handful of flat metal pads glued directly to the roof of your RV (plus possibly a couple or three on each side if you're in high latitudes) can pick up the signal without moving anything around. The pads can be utterly unobtrusive, installed permanently, and offer no wind resistance at all.
There are no moving parts because the array is "aimed" only in a virtual sense by software. You'll still need a good bit of surface area to pick up a useful signal, but that surface area can be flat and spread over a larger area in smaller bits (you don't need one big contiguous dish, just a few squares or rectangles of surface area). It can even track a moving satellite and keep it in view (or track a moving or geosync sat while you are driving down the road).
No wind resistance when driving, no moving parts to wear out or replace. Just a few metal bits glued flat to the roof, wired to a computer that compensates for the time difference between the various signals. You could get signal from multiple satellites in different parts of the sky simultaneously, or based on which one happens to be in the clearest view at the moment, without carrying around a sky chart and signal meter or depending on a complex array of servos to do it for you.
Phased arrays are not new. It just takes a lot of number-crunching and a lot of power, which up until now has been accomplished more cheaply by hammering out a parabolic dish and aiming at a stationary target, saving all that number-crunching.
This guy's algorithm and chip design may (or may not) make it cheap enough to be practical for routine use.
Re:Phased Array antennas (Score:3, Insightful)
True, they don't need to move. Except when an ice storm loads enough ice up to move it. Or wind moves it. Or the idiot installer couldn't be bothered to point it correctly the first time. Or the neighborhood kids decide to repeatedly throw basketballs at it. Or any of a dozen other ways that crap happens and you need to re-point the dish.
Being able to more securely mount it in "roughly" the right direction, and electronically "point" the array would be a big advantage.
Re:Phased Array antennas (Score:3, Insightful)
Indeed they are SO SO not new that anyone around when they were used in the late 80's and early 90's would not have been alive when they were invented in 1905. :-)