Sunday, July 17, 2022
By:
At work this week, I enjoyed testing out the radio's ability to detect and isolate complicated signals using a few function generators lying around the laboratory. My advisor, Dr. Cheung, helped me set up the test signal, which is really just an amalgamation of four function generators triggering and modulating off of each other. After tuning the dials such that the waveform seemed reasonable according to the oscilloscope, it was time to send it to the radio and see how it liked it.
Overall, the radio seems to do its lock-in amplifier job quite well considering what it's built for! By choosing a high enough sample rate and implementing the appropriate filters, we can yield a mostly convincing final output that sort of resembles the unadulterated signal we're searching for. If we send in square wave modulation, we pull out a square wave in the final result. If we do the same thing with a sine wave, the result is even better. Unfortunately though, if we push the sample rate all the way up into the megahertz where we want it to be, we experience strange spiking phenomena. Our gut says this is the hardware's limitation manifesting itself in the data, but we're still not sure exactly what's happening in the first place. All we know is that periodically, samples get dropped from the bitstream, and the remaining points' values tend to be wobbly near where the error occurred.
Outside of work life, our Dungeons & Dragons adventuring party enjoyed their third gaming session where the heroes delved deeper into Muglosh Mine, searching for treasure. What greeted them below the surface were beasts, undead, and aberrations with an intense thirst for living flesh! All-in-all, the party has had much success in staying alive throughout the campaign, even amidst all the creeping creatures crawling about. We'll have to see next time how they manage to escape with as much loot as they can find!
It's a pleasure to be working in Washington, D.C. with such caring and wonderful interns around me. I'm always so pleased by how supportive and understanding my coworkers are when things don't always go as planned. This isn't an easy work environment to come across when searching for summer internships and research jobs, and I am so thankful to be part of this amazing crew. Thank you for the opportunity to be part of your team!
Taylor Colaizzi