LAR/SKA Aerostat Winches

In 2000, A.G.O. worked with researchers at McGill University to build a set of winches to control the aerostat-positioning tethers in the Large Adapative Reflector radio telescope prototype.  A.G.O. built both the servo-motor driven ground-based winches that controlled the deployed aerostat’s position above the array, as well as a CSW-7 used to deploy and recover the 1/3-scale prototype aerostat balloon from its transport trailer.  The prototype balloon was 18 meters long and 7 meters in diameter.

This international project was dedicated to building (at the time) the world’s largest steerable radio telescope at the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory (DRAO) in Penticton, BC, Canada.  When complete, it was projected to have 100 times the sensitivity of radio telescopes of the time.

The project was supported by funding from the National Research Council of Canada and through a grant from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation to Dr. Meyer Nahon of McGill University (previously with University of Victoria).

The papers  detailing the LAR scale-model prototype project and the winch-based aerostat control system can be downloaded here: