Mission Statement

Since October 2015 the Radboud Radio Lab (RLL) is dedicated to support the instrument development for all the astronomical projects in the department of astrophysics of the Radboud University, by providing both manpower and facilities. As name suggest, the RRL’s original focus was mainly on radio astronomical instrumentation, however, the focus has been expanded and includes instrumentation covering all frequency regimes and technologies used in astronomy, and serving both ground-based and space-based applications.

The unique expertise of the RRL team allows them to operate on the boundary between science and industry, providing an interface between astronomers and engineers. In this process, the involvement of the RRL starts from the early science definition, proposal, concept and bread-boarding phase to the design- and prototype phase. For the later phases when the actual instrument hardware will be build, the RRL seeks collaboration with expert institutional or industry partners. These partners will be selected and involved in the early stages, to ensure a smooth collaboration. The RRL can lead all these activities, and deliver and commission the fully tested instrument on site.

The RRL actively seeks the collaboration with external partners, and acts as liaison and has established working relations for the different groups at department of Astrophysics with institutions such as for instance ESA, ESO, SRON, and ASTRON, and industry partners in the Netherlands such as ISIS, Inspiro, S&T, TNO, ATG Europe. In addition to bringing technical and scientific expertise, the RRL can manage funding applications by bringing together the right partners and finding the funding schemes.

The RRL team is a versatile and enthusiastic team of scientist and engineers that seek new challenges and want to break the technology boundaries to push for new advances in astronomical research. Check out the projects pages for the current projects in the RRL, but in addition to some of the larger projects in the domain of astrophysics the RRL also participates in smaller technology developments and innovations, that can serve for spin-out or spin-in activities and valorisation.