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The Lovell's huge dish reflects radio waves to a focal point, whereas the new network will collect data from all the telescopes, and deliver the signals to the common focus of our data correlator."įujitsu is the leading Japanese information and communication technology (ICT) company offering a full range of technology products, solutions and services. The e-MERLIN network will perform, on a much larger scale, the equivalent function of Jodrell Bank's 76-metre Lovell Telescope.
The e-MERLIN project represents something of a scientific breakthrough - it will be the world's longest-baseline, permanently connected radio telescope array with this immense bandwidth, which is only achievable by deploying fibre to network the individual telescopes. Simon Garrington of Jodrell Bank Observatory, e-MERLIN project manager, explained: "It would have been difficult for us to take e-MERLIN further forward without Fujitsu's willingness to deliver a timely solution that met our technical and financial criteria. We wish the University of Manchester, and all the teams involved with e-MERLIN, the greatest success." It is indeed a project with infinite possibilities. This successful harmony, of pioneering science, IT and telecommunications, will enable radio images to be resolved at far greater distances, and allow us to see further back in time to the very youngest galaxies. Key to the scientific potential is the fibre-networking requirement to move such a huge quantity of data so quickly, between the remote telescopes and Jodrell Bank. "Our company's philosophy, of recognising the infinite possibilities of customers' requirements and their solutions, is strongly epitomised by this project, which has as its goal a greater understanding of the universe itself. Our team, under the leadership of Amrit Bajjon, has been involved with the detailed planning of the project for over twelve months - it has been quite an undertaking. The unique scope of Fujitsu's resources, in terms of technology and field services, proved to be an essential factor in winning this contract. Establishing the essential fibre links, between the dark-fibre backbone and the individual telescopes, is an exciting contract for us - especially as it is contributing to such a significant scientific endeavour, helping to create one of the world's largest connected radio telescope arrays. Mr Shigeyuki Unagami, managing director of Fujitsu Telecommunications Europe Ltd, commented: "Fujitsu is very pleased to be playing a pivotal role in the University of Manchester's realisation of the e-MERLIN radio astronomy project. Together with the high angular resolution provided by the 217km separation between the telescopes, it will have the capability of resolving radio images from the faintest, and most distant, galaxies and stellar bodies, as a result of increasing the sensitivity of the existing microwave-linked MERLIN network by a factor of more than 30. It is this huge data rate that will give e-MERLIN its unprecedented sensitivity. This will link the remote telescope sites to a dark-fibre backbone and allow data from the telescopes to be collected at a rate of 150Gb per second - five times the average traffic of the entire UK Internet. This will connect the university's radio telescope at Jodrell Bank with five other radio telescopes around the UK, to form a single, large-array telescope - capable of achieving previously unattainable sensitivity for this type of high resolution array, and representing the first example of an array to be connected using a national multi-Gigabit fibre network.įujitsu's contribution to the project includes the trench-laying of some 90km of new fibre.
Fujitsu Telecommunications Europe Ltd, the leading supplier of high performance telecommunications solutions, announces that it has won a prestigious multi-million GBP contract, to supply long-distance optical fibre links for the University of Manchester's e-MERLIN project.