Concentrator

A concentrator is generally a technical device, which summarizes some, or compacted bundles.

Optics

A concentrator in optics to light with high efficiency focus on a minimal surface, thus achieving a high irradiance. It is not necessary to generate an image of the light source. For this purpose, there are imaging optical functional elements such as condenser lenses, and the concave mirror, but also non- imaging optical functional elements such as prisms or cones used as well as structures that utilize the total internal reflection.

Optical concentrators are used today, for example, for solar thermal power plants and photovoltaic modules.

Process engineering

In process engineering, a concentrator is used in a mixture to increase the proportion of a component.

Network Technology

The network technology is meant by a concentrator, a device that combines several lines of a certain bandwidth on a line greater bandwidth and vice versa. It is sort of a multiplexer functionality.

One finds the term related to "remote access". In a " remote access concentrator " are multiple, relatively narrow-band ISDN or V.90 (56k) leads to a LAN with far greater bandwidth (10 or 100 Mbit / s) attached.

Switching technology

In a switching center is referred to as a concentrator switching matrix that reduces a large number of input lines to a much smaller number of output lines.

In the access network, telephone network is called the network elements designated with remote peripheral device as concentrators.