The Vancouver Chapter of the IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems, Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society are hosting the following events in 2006.
2007: September
For past events, click here.
Designing and Building the Atacama Cosmology Telescope
Dr. Ye Zhou
When: Wednesday,
September 19,
2007, at 6:00 p.m.
Where: MacDonald Dettwiler, 13800 Commerce Parkway, Richmond, BC
Abstract:
The Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) is
a six-meter diameter, off-axis, millimeter-wave telescope that will be
used to study cosmic microwave background radiation, aiming to deepen
our understanding of the universe. AMEC Dynamic Structures of Port
Coquitlam was contracted by Princeton University and the University of
Pennsylvania to provide full turnkey development of the telescope from
design through site commissioning.
Unlike other radio telescopes whose primary function is to track faint
radio-wave sources, ACT will scan selected patches of sky millions of
times. By overlaying information from multiple scans, the telescope will
produce extremely high sensitivity images. The reflectors of the ACT
must be aligned to within tens of microns and the motion profile needs
to be smoothly controlled to within arcseconds. ACT is sited on Cerro
Toco in the Chilean Andes in the Atacama Desert region of Chile at an
altitude of 5,200 meters, considered to be one of the driest places in
the world.
This talk will focus primarily on the engineering aspects of the ACT
project, identifying the challenges and sharing the experiences of the
concept development, detailed design, fabrication, assembly and site
commissioning of the telescope.
Biography:
Ye Zhou is a Research Engineer at Dynamic Structures, Ltd. Ye has
10 years of experience in engineering, building and commissioning large
complex structural/mechanical systems. These include industrial
structures and machinery, astronomical telescopes and entertainment ride
systems. He is the lead engineer of the Atacama Cosmology Telescope
project, covering engineering activities from concept development to
site commissioning. Ye is a member of APEGBC. He graduated from the
University of British Columbia with undergraduate and graduate degrees
in structural engineering.