| 24th of February 2015 |
|---|
|
| ATNF Colloquium |
| MWA & progress towards SKA_LOW |
| by Carole Jackson (ICRAR, Curtin University) |
| Abstract. Work by the "Low-Frequency
Aperture Array" (LFAA) R&D Consortium for the future SKA telescope is
concentrated on the set of antennas, on board amplifiers and local processing
required for the Aperture Array telescope of the SKA. The LFAA covers the
lowest frequency band for the SKA (50 - 350 MHz) in the Baseline Design. It
is an aperture array consisting of over a quarter of a million wide bandwidth
antennas of a single design. The configuration is very close packed with 75%
of the antennas within a 2km diameter core and the remaining collecting area
situated on three spiral arms, extending out to a radius of 50km and enabling
higher spatial resolution observations. - Partners in this consortium have
designed, realised and now operate SKA pathfinder and precursor low frequency
array telescopes such as LOFAR and the MWA. Image credit: Natasha Hurley-Walker (ICRAR, Curtin University) |