PAF Testing Progresses at the Parkes Testbed Facility
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29 July 2011
CSIRO's first phased array feed (PAF) has been successfully mounted on a 12-metre antenna at the ASKAP Testbed Facility in Parkes, NSW. This is an important step in the process of testing the novel technology in readiness for ASKAP.
In June 2011, the PAF was completed and successfully integrated within a test engineering system at the CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science headquarters at Marsfield, NSW.
Over the past four weeks the PAF has been undergoing ground-based testing at CSIRO's Parkes Observatory. Now placed on the 12-metre antenna at Parkes, the PAF will undergo further testing in a real antenna environment.
PAFs or 'radio cameras', once fully developed, will be installed on the antennas of the ASKAP radio telescope, currently being constructed at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory (MRO) in Western Australia.
PAFs have many separate, simultaneous beams for detecting radio waves and allow telescopes to have a much wider field of view, and to scan the sky more quickly, than alternative technologies.
"Mounting the PAF on the 12-metre antenna at Parkes represents the next milestone in its testing and development, and is a great achievement for CSIRO's ASKAP team," said Ant Schinckel, ASKAP Project Director.
"Testing the PAF on an actual antenna will allow us to comprehensively test end-to-end system capability in a controlled Observatory environment. This is a crucial next step before we look to install the first PAF on an actual ASKAP antenna at the MRO in coming months."
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