Drone-Based Antenna Beam Calibration in the High Arctic

TL;DR

This paper introduces PteroSoar, a drone-based system for calibrating antenna beam patterns in the high Arctic, enabling precise radio astronomy measurements in remote and environmentally challenging conditions.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel drone platform with RTK GPS for antenna calibration in the Arctic, addressing environmental challenges and magnetic heading issues.

Findings

Successful deployment of PteroSoar in the high Arctic

Preliminary beam map of ALBATROS antenna generated

Demonstrated accurate drone positioning with RTK GPS

Abstract

The development of low-frequency radio astronomy experiments for detecting 21-cm line emission from hydrogen presents new opportunities for creative solutions to the challenge of characterizing an antenna beam pattern. The Array of Long Baseline Antennas for Taking Radio Observations from the Seventy-ninth parallel (ALBATROS) is a new radio interferometer sited in the Canadian high Arctic that aims to map Galactic foregrounds at frequencies below $\sim$30 MHz. We present PteroSoar, a custom-built hexacopter outfitted with a transmitter, that will be used to characterize the beam patterns of ALBATROS and other experiments. The PteroSoar drone hardware is motivated by the need for user-servicing at remote sites and environmental factors that are unique to the high Arctic. In particular, magnetic heading is unreliable because the magnetic field lines near the north pole are almost vertical. We therefore implement moving baseline real time kinematic (RTK) positioning with two GPS units to obtain heading solutions with $\sim$1$^\circ$ accuracy. We present a preliminary beam map of an ALBATROS antenna, thus demonstrating successful PteroSoar operation in the high Arctic.