Square Kilometre Array Preconstruction Phase
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Oxford
Department Name: Oxford Physics
Abstract
The Square Kilometre Array is a large international project to design and build the world's largest radio telescope. It will consist of three arrays of antennas: SKA-Mid, consisting of 250 dish antennas, in South Africa; SKA-Survey, a smaller dish array in Australia; and the Low-Frequency Aperture Array (LFAA), also in Australia. This grant supports the contribution of Oxford University to three of the consortia which are developing the detailed design of the SKA. The LFAA is one of the major elements of the SKA, comprising an array of 250,000 antennas working at frequencies up to 350 MHz (similar to FM radio). Oxford is leading the design of the hardware that will process the signals from these antennas and combine them in to many hundreds of 'virtual dishes', that can be pointed and steered electronically. In the Central Signal Processing consortium, we are designing the electronics that will combine the signals from these virtual dishes to form images, and also working on the systems that will search the signals from the LFAA and the dish arrays for transient and repeating signals, such as those from pulsars. In the Science Data Processor consortium we are developing software systems that will process the huge amounts of data coming out of the SKA, automatically producing science data products that astronomers can use, and storing and disseminating these data around the world. Much of the work, particularly in the hardware design, is being done in collaboration with UK companies who will also benefit from this research as they help us to develop state-of-the-art signal processing systems, which can have applications in many fields outside of radio astronomy.
Planned Impact
The aim of a large fraction of this proposal is to design hardware (and associated firmware/software) to do signal processing within the SKA, and this will be done largely by industrial partners. The SKA IP policy states that firms working on SKA development will be able to use the IP thus generated in other domains. We therefore expect this funding to lead directly to new products and services outside of radio astronomy being provided by the industrial contractors involved in the research.
Organisations
- University of Oxford (Lead Research Organisation)
- University of Manchester (Collaboration)
- Leiden University (Collaboration)
- Goonhilly Satellite Earth Station (Collaboration)
- ASTRON Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (Collaboration)
- University of Hertfordshire (Collaboration)
- International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) (Collaboration)
- UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE (Collaboration)
- Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (Collaboration)
- UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH (Collaboration)
- DURHAM UNIVERSITY (Collaboration)
- NRC Canada (Collaboration)
- UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS (Collaboration)
Publications
Iacobelli M
(2013)
Studying Galactic interstellar turbulence through fluctuations in synchrotron emission First LOFAR Galactic foreground detection
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Coenen T
(2014)
The LOFAR pilot surveys for pulsars and fast radio transients
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Sotomayor-Beltran C
(2013)
Calibrating high-precision Faraday rotation measurements for LOFAR and the next generation of low-frequency radio telescopes
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Morosan D
(2014)
LOFAR tied-array imaging of Type III solar radio bursts
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Asgekar A
(2013)
LOFAR detections of low-frequency radio recombination lines towards Cassiopeia A
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Sotomayor-Beltran C
(2015)
Calibrating high-precision Faraday rotation measurements for LOFAR and the next generation of low-frequency radio telescopes (Corrigendum)
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Morosan D
(2015)
LOFAR tied-array imaging and spectroscopy of solar S bursts
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Moldón J
(2015)
The LOFAR long baseline snapshot calibrator survey
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Kondratiev V
(2016)
A LOFAR census of millisecond pulsars
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Adámek K
(2016)
A polyphase filter for many-core architectures
in Astronomy and Computing
Description | This grant has resulted in development of detailed designs of subsystems for several areas of the Square Kilometre Array. Much of the design work has now been incorporated in the the SKA adopted design, design work is continuing |
Exploitation Route | These results will be used in the construction of the SKA telescope. |
Sectors | Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software) Electronics |
URL | http://www.skatelescope.org |
Description | Part of this award was used to help a UK company, Oxford Cryosystems Limited, develop a new helium compressor, for the SKA project. This is now an available product from the company. Also, staff funded on this award have engaged in highly visible public outreach, contributing presentations and direct public engagement at the Bluedot Festivals in 2016 and 2017. Staff also took part in delivering training courses to students in Africa as part of the DARA (Development in Africa through Radio Astronomy) Newton-funded programme. |
First Year Of Impact | 2018 |
Sector | Education,Manufacturing, including Industrial Biotechology |
Impact Types | Cultural Economic |
Description | ASKAP-EMU survey |
Organisation | Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation |
Country | Australia |
Sector | Public |
PI Contribution | Chair of Cosmology and Cross-matching working groups |
Collaborator Contribution | PI of survey, multi-national partners in different working groups |
Impact | Raccanelli et al. 2012 Camere et al., 2012 Norris et al. 2011 |
Start Year | 2010 |
Description | Consortium of Universities for Goonhilly Astronomy |
Organisation | Durham University |
Department | Department of Physics |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Construction of a radio receiver for research and training, to be used at the Goonhilly Earth Station |
Collaborator Contribution | Contributions to the running costs of the facilities at GES, in-kind contributions of equipment |
Impact | Grant from JANET to GES to connect Goonhilly to the JANET data network. |
Start Year | 2010 |
Description | Consortium of Universities for Goonhilly Astronomy |
Organisation | Goonhilly Satellite Earth Station |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Private |
PI Contribution | Construction of a radio receiver for research and training, to be used at the Goonhilly Earth Station |
Collaborator Contribution | Contributions to the running costs of the facilities at GES, in-kind contributions of equipment |
Impact | Grant from JANET to GES to connect Goonhilly to the JANET data network. |
Start Year | 2010 |
Description | Consortium of Universities for Goonhilly Astronomy |
Organisation | University of Hertfordshire |
Department | School of Physics and Astronomy |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Construction of a radio receiver for research and training, to be used at the Goonhilly Earth Station |
Collaborator Contribution | Contributions to the running costs of the facilities at GES, in-kind contributions of equipment |
Impact | Grant from JANET to GES to connect Goonhilly to the JANET data network. |
Start Year | 2010 |
Description | Consortium of Universities for Goonhilly Astronomy |
Organisation | University of Leeds |
Department | School of Physics and Astronomy |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Construction of a radio receiver for research and training, to be used at the Goonhilly Earth Station |
Collaborator Contribution | Contributions to the running costs of the facilities at GES, in-kind contributions of equipment |
Impact | Grant from JANET to GES to connect Goonhilly to the JANET data network. |
Start Year | 2010 |
Description | Consortium of Universities for Goonhilly Astronomy |
Organisation | University of Manchester |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Construction of a radio receiver for research and training, to be used at the Goonhilly Earth Station |
Collaborator Contribution | Contributions to the running costs of the facilities at GES, in-kind contributions of equipment |
Impact | Grant from JANET to GES to connect Goonhilly to the JANET data network. |
Start Year | 2010 |
Description | ICRAR Profiling |
Organisation | International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) |
Country | Australia |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Collaboration on developing profiling and benchmarking framework, for characterising and modelling scientific workloads for the SKA Telescope. * Research - methods and technologies from previous profiling experience * Software - development of framework * Hosting of code repository * Grant proposal contributions |
Collaborator Contribution | Collaboration on developing profiling and benchmarking framework, for characterising and modelling scientific workloads for the SKA Telescope. * Research - methods and technologies from previous profiling and MWA Telescope experiences * Software - development framework * Invitation to ICRAR * Grant proposal contributions |
Impact | Journal article is currently being co-authored by this collaboration pertaining to the work that is on-going. Proposal has recently been submitted (Nov 2014) to the Australian Research Council that includes the use of the profiling work formed from this collbaoration. The work being undertaken is multi-disciplinary and is the union of computer science (OeRC) and radio astronomy (ICRAR), to solve and identify domain specific, with wider scientific applicability, issues surrounding performance of software and hardware, along side power consumption. Currently, the OeRC provides expertise with profiling systems and hardware. ICRAR brings expertise in radio astronomy and experiences gained from running the MWA telescope. |
Start Year | 2014 |
Description | LOFAR Surveys |
Organisation | Leiden University |
Country | Netherlands |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Member of the management team and lead the cosmology working group |
Collaborator Contribution | Reduction of data, joint definition of survey strategy, running the survey |
Impact | Publications |
Description | LOFAR Surveys |
Organisation | University of Edinburgh |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Member of the management team and lead the cosmology working group |
Collaborator Contribution | Reduction of data, joint definition of survey strategy, running the survey |
Impact | Publications |
Description | SKA Aperture Array Delivery Consortium |
Organisation | ASTRON Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy |
Country | Netherlands |
Sector | Private |
PI Contribution | The Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (Astron) leads this consortium of several research institutes which is designing systems for the Square Kilometre Array. Oxford is contributing to the design of the digital signal processing system and the overall system design. |
Collaborator Contribution | Other partners are contributing design to all other aspects of the SKA low-frequency aperture array system. |
Impact | Design documents internal to the SKA project. |
Start Year | 2013 |
Description | SKA Central Signal Processing Consortium |
Organisation | NRC Canada |
Country | Canada |
Sector | Public |
PI Contribution | NRC leads the SKA central signal processing consortium. Oxford contributes design of signal processing systems for detection and analysis of pulsar signals. |
Collaborator Contribution | Other consortium members provide designs of other aspects of the SKA signal processing system including beamformers and correlators. |
Impact | SKA internal project documents |
Start Year | 2013 |
Description | SKA Dish Consortium |
Organisation | Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation |
Country | Australia |
Sector | Public |
PI Contribution | CSIRO leads the SKA Dish consortium which is designing the dish antennas and receivers for the SKA. Oxford is leading the design of one of the receiver packages. |
Collaborator Contribution | Other consortium members are designing the dish antennas and other receiver packages. |
Impact | SKA internal project documents |
Start Year | 2015 |
Description | SKA Science Data Processing Consortium |
Organisation | University of Cambridge |
Department | Department of Physics |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Cambridge leads the SKA consortium planning the science data processing system. Oxford contributes expertise in algorithms and high performance computing. |
Collaborator Contribution | Other consortium members contribute many areas of expertise in scientific computing. |
Impact | SKA internal project documents. |
Start Year | 2013 |
Title | OSKAR |
Description | The OSKAR package consists of a number of applications for the simulation of astronomical radio interferometers. OSKAR has been designed primarily to produce simulated visibility data from large aperture arrays, such as those envisaged for the SKA. The computation performed by OSKAR applications is accelerated using NVIDIA graphics processing units (GPUs). |
Type Of Technology | Software |
Year Produced | 2014 |
Open Source License? | Yes |
Impact | OSKAR plays a key role in the development of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) by providing simulation capability to the Science Data Processor (SDP) and Low Frequency Aperture Array (LFAA) consortia. By explicitly evaluating the response from radio sources across the whole sky and allowing for complex station beam effects, OSKAR enables simulations that were previously impossible to perform. Although developed to simulate data from the SKA, OSKAR has been used within a number of other projects in the radio astronomy community. |
URL | http://www.oerc.ox.ac.uk/~ska/oskar/ |
Title | SKA cryogenic receiver |
Description | A multi-feed receiver with low noise, high efficiency when installed on a suitable antenna, low power consumption and low manufacturing costs. |
Type Of Technology | New/Improved Technique/Technology |
Year Produced | 2019 |
Impact | Potential for UK manufacture for the SKA. |
Title | uvwsim |
Description | The uvwsim library provides a simple C API for generating interferometric baseline (uvw) coordinates. This library has been developed for use with various SKA.SDP tasks. |
Type Of Technology | Software |
Year Produced | 2014 |
Open Source License? | Yes |
Impact | This software provides a tool to evaluate interferometer baseline distributions, and can be used within SKA-SDP for the development of algorithms such as gridding. |
URL | https://github.com/SKA-ScienceDataProcessor/uvwsim |
Description | Many-core seminar (Oxford), 2014 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
Results and Impact | Talk sparked questions and discussion afterwards. Unknown impact. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
URL | http://www.oerc.ox.ac.uk/projects/cuda-centre-excellence/2014-many-core-presentations |
Description | Oxford Astrophysics Stargazing event |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Oxford Astrophysics holds an annual 'Stargazing' public event with ~500 attendees. Staff from this research project take part in talks and demonstrations explaining the SKA project and astrophysics in general to the public. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015,2016,2017,2018,2019 |
Description | SKA stand at Bluedot Festival, Jodrell Bank |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Members of our research group staffed an SKA stall at the Bluedot Festival (music/science) at Jodrell Bank in 2016 and 2017. They explained the SKA project and astronomy in general to members of the public (several hundred encounters from the ~5000 people attending the festival). Our staff reported strong interest and appreciation from the members of the public they spoke to. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016,2017 |