INNOVATION July-August 2018

from the cellphone industry, amplify the faint target signals while minimizing noise. The telescope’s data-processing brain is another advance. Made from customized electronics and commercial graphical processing units, the signal correlator combines and converts, in real time, the analogue-radio signals collected by

Radio Astrophysical Observatory (DRAO) near Penticton, BC, began detecting radio waves emitted by hydrogen clouds in distant galaxies, radio bursts from pulsars, and a newly discovered phenomenon called fast radio bursts. Scientists at UBC, McGill, University of Toronto, DRAO, and other research institutions across North America will use these

data to map gravitational waves, as well as radio emissions from our own galaxy. According to Dr. Mark Halpern, the UBC astronomy professor who led the development of CHIME in BC, the information will also allow researchers to “make a three-dimensional map of where neutral hydrogen is in the universe and, from this map, […] we will infer the expansion history of the universe.” The $16-million observatory consists of four fixed 100-metre-by-20- metre U-shaped dishes. Sightline Engineering’s Loewen helped Halpern design the telescope’s structure when he was chief engineer at Dynamic Structures. He says that, unlike the TMT, the structural engineering for CHIME was relatively simple. “Structurally, the tolerances are very loose compared to the TMT, which requires super-precise, super-low tolerances,” he says. “CHIME is a simple, repeating design without moving parts, so our task was to optimize construction details for cost-effectiveness.” Other aspects of the telescope are more complex. Because humans generate so much radio noise and the Milky Way emits its own strong radio signals, CHIME must sort through that local din to isolate the faint radio whispers from far-flung galaxies—whispers that have travelled billions of light years through space and time. The telescope, which is about the size of five hockey arenas, includes more than 1,000 custom-designed radio antennae to detect wavelengths in hydrogen’s 400– 800 MHz range. Low-noise electronics, built in BC from components adapted

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