Cheap and effective

“What’s unique about this technology is that it’s very cheap. The reflector itself is passive, made by 3D printing and laser cutting,” adds Stephan Hauptmeier from the university team.

“Another advantage is that to detect it, we can use a radar technology well-established in the automotive industry – the same one that is part of driver assistance systems and will, for example, cause a car to break automatically if an obstacle is detected. This means no special ‘space-grade’ radar is needed.”

“This has been a unique opportunity to leverage hardware previously developed within ESA’s Technology Development Element programme for planetary and in-orbit missions, based on automotive radar technology,” says Václav Valenta, ESA’s microwave engineer. “By making one of these prototypes available to students, we enable them to gain practical experience with real radar technology and explore how such systems can be configured and optimised for specific applications.”