Radio waves shaped like PASTA???

I worked for many years with computer and electronic systems that used radio signals. I thought I understood something about aerials, transmitters, and all that sort of thing (or I used to, until modern digital systems took over and rendered me as obsolete as the dinosaurs!). However, I'd never heard of anything like this.

Radio waves twisted into the shape of fusilli pasta have been beamed across Venice – and researchers discovered that they allow for a potentially infinite number of channels to be broadcast and received.

Fusilli (image courtesy of Wikipedia)

The researchers, from the University of Padova, Italy, and the Angstrom Laboratory, Sweden, believe that they have solved the problem of radio congestion.

As the world continues to adapt in the digital age, the introduction of new mobile smartphones, wireless internet and digital TVs means the number of radio frequency bands available to broadcast information gets smaller and smaller.

‘You just have to try sending a text message at midnight on New Year's Eve to realise how congested the bands are,’ said lead author Dr Fabrizio Tamburini.

A wave can twist about its axis a certain number of times in either a clockwise or anti-clockwise direction, meaning there are several configurations that it can adopt.

‘In a three-dimensional perspective, this phase twist looks like a fusilli-pasta-shaped beam,' Tamburini continued.

'Each of these twisted beams can be independently generated, propagated and detected even in the very same frequency band, behaving as independent communication channels.'

There's more at the link.

Hmm . . . Speaking as one formerly involved with electronic warfare, this suggests a new approach. If one uses aerials shaped like fusilli to intercept signals, one should be able to tell at once which messages are real, and which are im-pastas!





Peter