SKA Preconstruction update

The Square Kilometre Array is a large international project to design and build the world's largest radio telescope. It will consist of two arrays of antennas: SKA-Mid, consisting of 200 dish antennas, in South Africa and SKA-Low, in Australia. This grant supports the contribution of Oxford University to four of the consortia which are developing the detailed design of the SKA. The Low Frequency Aperture Array is one of the major elements of SKA-Low, comprising an array of 130,000 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 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. In the Dish consortium we will develop the prototype feed package which includes the integration of the cryogenic cooling, feed horns, low noise amplifiers, RF gain chain and all relevant support equipment in to a complete package that will be tested on the prototype SKA dish antenna. 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.

The research covered by this grant will use equipment supplied by high-tech industry in the UK. Following on from the development work supported in this grant, the SKA Organisation will procure the production systems needed to construct the telescope, placing production contracts according to a full tender exercise to which UK companies will be able to bid.