Single-event noise discrimination. Credit: (c) Science 11 December 2015: Vol. 350 no. 6266 pp. 1343-1346, DOI: 10.1126/science.aac8446 Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-12-optical-technique-radio-background-noise.html#jCp
A small team of researchers with the University of California has found a way to pick out a single short radio signal burst among a barrage of background noise. Currently it is impossible to separate out a unique signal if there is just one burst present—there needs to be multiple examples. That could change in the near future as the researchers on this new effort have developed a way to convert radio signals to optical signals that can be processed to filter, separate and identify individual components.
The team started with converting the radio signals to optical signals because the latter are more sensitive to changes in frequency—to make the conversation, the team looped the signals so that they could gather enough data for averaging. Next they used 2 tunable optical frequency combs—when the spectrums were overlapped it allowed for alignment of the components which caused the signal to be amplified as compared to other background noise, which then allowed it to be uniquely identified. The team tested their technique by running 4,720 detection attempts and found it to be better than 99 % accurate.
The researchers believe their technique can be broadened to include the detection of a wide variety of signals, from optic applications to those that look for microwaves. It could also possibly be modified for use in seemingly unrelated research areas such as sensing the spontaneous decay of a molecule. There also exists the possibility that the new detector could be used to spot signals that to date have gone undetected, perhaps revealing the existence of some new type of phenomena.
http://phys.org/news/2015-12-optical-technique-radio-background-noise.htmljCp
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