Technical Facilities
Our facilities are flexible and serve to enable our research and teaching as well as modest preproduction testing for industry.
Our philosophy is to encourage collaboration with industry and we believe that this is best done at the development stage.
Acoustics and Signal Processing
The Loughborough University Tank Facility is housed in the School of Electronic, Electrical and Systems Engineering and is operated by the Applied Signal Processing Group. For full details click here.
Anechoic Chambers
We currently have two anechoic microwave measurement chambers for antennas and another for acoustics and a half-wave anechoic chamber with source oscillator and analyser to 50GHZ that is suitable for dielectric and array characterisation. We are commissioning two further anechoic chambers which will enable us to offer a service second to none in Europe. All of these facilities are also used by us to look at Metamaterials.
Electronic Systems Design
The Electronic Systems Design Group's research laboratory hardware is mainly based on modern workstations running Linux, although a smaller number of Windows machines are also used. The group has licences for a comprehensive range of modern electronic design tools. These include Cadence, Synopsys, Mentor Graphics, Altera, Verisity, and Saros.
High Speed Networks
We have an extensive Network Testbed which was established by the donation of 8 IP routers, 4 switches and associated interconnections from CISCO. Other nodes and approximately 30 end stations have been added to the Testbed, along with 4 Monitor Stations with synchronised timing. This provides an instrumented Internet Tesbed with considerable complexity and flexibility. Experimental work on network performance measurement and network abuse detection is undertaken with this Testbed.
Mobile Communications
The Centre for Mobile Communications Research has the following facilities:
Simulation Expertise
Several electromagnetic simulation packages including:
Ansoft's HFSS
Applied Wave Research's Microwave Office and VSS
CST's MICROWAVE STUDIO™
CST’s MICROSTRIPES™
IMST's Empire
In-house developed FDTD, TLM, MoM codes for antenna modelling.
Prototype Manufacture Equipment
Microstrip etching
Mechanical workshop
Measurements
Automated measurements up to 75GHz
Fully automated antenna range for mobility products from 0.4 - 6GHz
Industrial Standard SAR measurements using Speag's DASY 4.0
(Please contact Terence West if you wish to carry out SAR measurements at Loughborough University)
A wide range of RF/Microwave equipment
Modelling and Simulation
The Advanced Virtual Reality Research Centre (AVRRC) maintains a comprehensive range of state of the art facilities for its modelling, simulation and visualization research. These facilities include dedicated bespoke hardware and software resources to support research into synthetic environments and distributed simulation activities.
These include:
5m Vision Dome
4m Vision Dome
SEOS 150 degree High Resolution Panaoramic Display
Stereographic Immersive Work Benches (x2)
Advanced Collaborative Design Environment
Synthetic Environment Development Laboratory
Plasma and Pulsed Power
Computational Lab
Plasma Lab
Bioengineering Lab
Renewable Energy
The Centre for Renewable Energy Systems Technology (CREST) has the following resources available:
Angela Marmont Renewable Energy Laboratory (AMREL)
A 2.2 kW wind turbine adjacent to AMREL
A 25 kW wind turbine simulator
Access to two local 25kW grid-connected wind turbines
Access to the advanced prototype 600kW MS4 at CAT in mid-Wales
A fully instrumented 2 kWp configurable thin-film amorphous-silicon PV array
A fully instrumented 2.7 kWp configurable mono-crystalline silicon PV array
A 500 Wp configurable polycrystalline PV array
A range of grid-connected inverters from 100 W to 1.8 kW
Various power supplies for inverter characterisation
A range of stand-alone photovoltaic system equipment
A spectoradiameter for ambient solar radiation characterisation
A fully instrumented outdoor PV test system
A class B small area solar simulator
A class C large-scale solar simulator for testing photovoltaic façade elements
A PV simulator for grid-connected inverter characterisation
Battery powered Electric Vans
Industrial Class-A Large Area Solar Simulator (Spi-Sun 240A)
Large Area Laser Beam Induced Current Measurement System (LBIC)
Fully Instrumented Outdoor Measurement System for Photovoltaic Module Performance
In addition, CREST has access to two low-head water turbines (850 W and 2.2 kW) at nearby West Beacon Farm, and will soon have use of a 25 kW Vergnet turbine locally. A new hydrogen research and demonstration facility is currently being developed in conjunction with Beacon Energy. On campus, there are plans to establish a 1.0 kW wind turbine test site.
Wireless Communications
Simulation Expertise
Several commercial electromagnetic simulation packages such as CST's MICROWAVE STUDIO, Flomerics' Micro-Stripes, MiniNEC as well as in-house developed FDTD and TLM codes for antenna modelling.
Prototype Manufacture Equipment
Microstrip etching
Laser trimmer
Mechanical workshop
Measurements
Fully automated antenna range for mobility products from 0.4 to 6GHz
A wide range of RF/Microwave equipment