Chapter 7
SETI Program at the Medicina INAF
Radioastronomy Station: Past, Present,
Future of PC Based Spectrometers
Roberto Lulli , Giuseppe Pupillo , and Stelio Montebugnoli
Abstract From 2012, the development of a new line of low-cost, high-resolution
spectrometers began at the Medicina Radio Astronomical Station following the
guidelines in the article “SETI back end made inexpensive” presented at the 61st
International Astronautical Congress (IAC) by Dr. Eng. Stelio Montebugnoli in 2010
(Montebugnoli et al. (2010) Proceedings of 61st international astronautical congress
2010 (IAC 2010), IAC-10.A4.4, vol 5, pp 4284–4288).
The growing availability of high-performance:
• Commercial Off-The-Shelf components (COTS), such as multi-core Central
Processing Unit (CPU) Personal Computers (PC),
• computational accelerators such as Graphics Processing Units (GPU), Intel Xeon
Phi many-core systems,
• Field Programmable Gates Arrays (FPGA),
has allowed the development of a set of instruments whose costs increase linearly
but performances increase exponentially. Moreover, the use of ad-hoc software with
an open architecture and without extreme optimizations has made these tools scalable and easily integrable even with new and more powerful accelerators and data
acquisition boards produced over the years. These spectrometers can be exploited in
different radio astronomical amatorial or professional applications. The bandwidth
from the narrow ones typical of space debris and NEO (Near Earth Objects such as
R. Lulli (B) · G. Pupillo
National Institute for Astro-Physics (INAF), Radio Astronomy Institute (IRA), via Piero Gobetti
101, 40129 Bologna, Italy
e-mail: roberto.lulli@unicam.it
R. Lulli
School of Advanced Studies (SAS), Camerino University, via Camillo Lili 55, 62032 Camerino,
Italy
S. Montebugnoli
National Institute for Astro-Physics (INAF), Radio Astronomy Institute (IRA), former engineer in
charge of the Northern Cross Radio Telescope, Via Fiorentina 3513, Medicina 40059, Italy
National Institute for Astro-Physics (INAF), Scientific Directorate, SETI advisor, Viale del Parco
Mellini 84, Rome 00136, Italy
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
S. Montebugnoli and A. Melis (eds.), The Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence,
Springer Proceedings in Physics 260, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63806-1_7
47
SETI Program at the Medicina INAF
Radioastronomy Station: Past, Present,
Future of PC Based Spectrometers
Roberto Lulli , Giuseppe Pupillo , and Stelio Montebugnoli
Abstract From 2012, the development of a new line of low-cost, high-resolution
spectrometers began at the Medicina Radio Astronomical Station following the
guidelines in the article “SETI back end made inexpensive” presented at the 61st
International Astronautical Congress (IAC) by Dr. Eng. Stelio Montebugnoli in 2010
(Montebugnoli et al. (2010) Proceedings of 61st international astronautical congress
2010 (IAC 2010), IAC-10.A4.4, vol 5, pp 4284–4288).
The growing availability of high-performance:
• Commercial Off-The-Shelf components (COTS), such as multi-core Central
Processing Unit (CPU) Personal Computers (PC),
• computational accelerators such as Graphics Processing Units (GPU), Intel Xeon
Phi many-core systems,
• Field Programmable Gates Arrays (FPGA),
has allowed the development of a set of instruments whose costs increase linearly
but performances increase exponentially. Moreover, the use of ad-hoc software with
an open architecture and without extreme optimizations has made these tools scalable and easily integrable even with new and more powerful accelerators and data
acquisition boards produced over the years. These spectrometers can be exploited in
different radio astronomical amatorial or professional applications. The bandwidth
from the narrow ones typical of space debris and NEO (Near Earth Objects such as
R. Lulli (B) · G. Pupillo
National Institute for Astro-Physics (INAF), Radio Astronomy Institute (IRA), via Piero Gobetti
101, 40129 Bologna, Italy
e-mail: roberto.lulli@unicam.it
R. Lulli
School of Advanced Studies (SAS), Camerino University, via Camillo Lili 55, 62032 Camerino,
Italy
S. Montebugnoli
National Institute for Astro-Physics (INAF), Radio Astronomy Institute (IRA), former engineer in
charge of the Northern Cross Radio Telescope, Via Fiorentina 3513, Medicina 40059, Italy
National Institute for Astro-Physics (INAF), Scientific Directorate, SETI advisor, Viale del Parco
Mellini 84, Rome 00136, Italy
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
S. Montebugnoli and A. Melis (eds.), The Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence,
Springer Proceedings in Physics 260, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63806-1_7
47