Satellite Dish

The Bukit Timah Satellite Earth Station is located in Bukit Timah near the Chantek flyover. This Singapore Landmark is owned by SingTel and started operations in 1986. The satallite dish is built in the shape of a paraboloid, a 3D shape with a parabolic cross-section (See Left).

Paraboloid

On the right is a diagram of a paraboloid. The cross section shown as a dashed line can be modelled with a parabolic equation. The reason why a parabola is used is because the surface will reflect all incident rays from afar towards a single focal point. A receiver is placed at the focal point to collect the signals sent from satellites above.

Try It!

In the applet below, you can slide the red point, P, around the surface of the parabola to observe how the incident ray is reflected to a single focal point. You can also toggle the curvature of the parabola to see what happens to the focal point.

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse