A TECHNICAL addition to the University of the South Pacific's School of Engineering and Physics will broaden the study of the effects of natural occurrences such as earthquakes, thunderstorms and solar eclipses.
This advancement, known as a low frequency (VLF) recording system, is called the Atmospheric Weather Electromagnetic System for Observation, Modelling and Education (AWESOME).
The USP said in a statement that the system was designed to record the amplitudes and phases of VLF signals and the wideband data.
"This is used to study the effects of various phenomena in the lower atmosphere," it said.
AWESOME is already proving useful to the university's students.
One student in particular postgraduate student and SEP graduate, Abhikesh Kumar is benefitting greatly from it.
Mr Kumar will use the system to aid his PhD research which is titled "Ionospheric D-region Investigation Using ELF-VLF Radio Wave Techniques."
He said this would be useful in terms of its possible contributions to the fields of "navigational communications, positioning, timings and research".
AWESOME is a system which is not commercially available.
This system was provided to the USP by the Stanford University's Space, Telecommunication and Radio Science (STAR) laboratory in the US.
The system has an estimated worth of $US20,000, ($F39,497) consisting of a receiver, a field antenna, GPS antenna, pre-amplifier, VLF line receiver and the data recording and analysis software.