9 research outputs found
The Northern Cross fast radio burst project–I: overview and pilot observations at 408 MHz
Fast radio bursts (FRBs) remain one of the most enigmatic astrophysical sources. Observations have significantly progressed over the last few years, due to the capabilities of new radio telescopes and the refurbishment of existing ones. Here, we describe the upgrade of the Northern Cross radio telescope, operating in the 400–416 MHz frequency band, with the ultimate goal of turning the array into a dedicated instrument to survey the sky for FRBs
Large Horizontal Near-field Scanner based on a Non-tethered Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
A horizontal planar scanner with an approximate size of 40 m x 40 m has been implemented using the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) technology. The UAV is not wired to the ground to maintain the flexibility and short setup time of a non-tethered flight. In this configuration, the UAV-mounted continuous-wave source is not phase-locked to the on-the-ground receiver. A dual-polarized reference antenna placed on the ground is hence used to retrieve the relevant phase information. The presented approach has been applied on the Pre - Aperture Array Verification System (Pre -AAVS1) of the Square Kilometre Array, which is a digital beamformed array with 16 active elements. An inverse source technique has been applied on measured Near-Field (NF) data acquired on two different sets of points (one for each electric field component) from all the receiver channels. In this way, Embedded Element Patterns (EEPs), array calibration coefficients and pattern have been determined from NF data only. The achieved results have been validated using a complementary set of Far-Field (FF) measurements and simulations
Characterization of the SKA1-Low prototype station Aperture Array Verification System 2
The low frequency component of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA1-Low) will be an aperture phased array located at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory (MRO) site in Western Australia. It will be composed of 512 stations, each consisting of 256 log-periodic dual-polarized antennas, and will operate in the low frequency range (50 to 350 MHz) of the SKA bandwidth. The Aperture Array Verification System 2 (AAVS2), operational since late 2019, is the last full-size engineering prototype station deployed at the MRO site before the start of the SKA1-Low construction phase. The aim of this paper is to characterize the station performance through commissioning observations at six different frequencies (55, 70, 110, 160, 230, and 320 MHz) collected during its first year of activities. We describe the calibration procedure, present the resulting all-sky images and their analysis, and discuss the station calibratability and system stability. Using the difference imaging method, we also derive estimates of the SKA1-Low sensitivity for the same frequencies and compare them with those obtained through electromagnetic simulations across the entire telescope bandwidth, finding good agreement (within 13%). Moreover, our estimates exceed the SKA1-Low requirements at all considered frequencies by up to a factor of ∼2.3. Our results are very promising and allow for an initial validation of the AAVS2 prototype station performance, which is an important step toward the coming SKA1-Low telescope construction and science
Receiver design for the REACH global 21-cm signal experiment
We detail the the REACH radiometric system designed to enable measurements of
the 21-cm neutral hydrogen line. Included is the radiometer architecture and
end-to-end system simulations as well as a discussion of the challenges
intrinsic to highly-calibratable system development. Following this, we share
laboratory results based on the calculation of noise wave parameters utilising
an over-constrained least squares approach demonstrating a calibration RMSE of
80 mK for five hours of integration on a custom-made source with comparable
impedance to that of the antenna used in the field. This paper therefore
documents the state of the calibrator and data analysis in December 2022 in
Cambridge before shipping to South Africa.Comment: 30 pages, 19 figure
The Signal Processing Firmware for the Low Frequency Aperture Array
The signal processing firmware that has been developed for the Low Frequency Aperture Array component of the Square Kilometre Array is described. The firmware is implemented on a dual FPGA board, that is capable of processing the streams from 16 dual polarization antennas. Data processing includes channelization of the sampled data for each antenna, correction for instrumental response and for geometric delays and formation of one or more beams by combining the aligned streams. The channelizer uses an oversampling polyphase filterbank architecture, allowing a frequency continuous processing of the input signal without discontinuities between spectral channels. Each board processes the streams from 16 antennas, as part of larger beamforming system, linked by standard Ethernet interconnections. There are envisaged to be 8192 of these signal processing platforms in the first phase of the Square Kilometre array so particular attention has been devoted to ensure the design is low cost and low power
The Digital Signal Processing Platform for the Low Frequency Aperture Array: Preliminary Results on the Data Acquisition Unit
A signal processing hardware platform has been developed for the Low Frequency Aperture Array component of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). The processing board, called an Analog Digital Unit (ADU), is able to acquire and digitize broadband (up to 500MHz bandwidth) radio-frequency streams from 16 dual polarized antennas, channel the data streams and then combine them flexibly as part of a larger beamforming system. It is envisaged that there will be more than 8000 of these signal processing platforms in the first phase of the SKA, so particular attention has been devoted to ensure the design is low-cost and low-power. This paper describes the main features of the data acquisition unit of such a platform and presents preliminary results characterizing its performance
Development of a New Digital Signal Processing Platform for the Square Kilometre Array
A novel digital hardware platform has been designed for
the Low Frequency Aperture Array (LFAA) component
of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). This board, called
Analog Digital Unit (ADU), is a 6U board containing
sixteen dual-inputs Analog to Digital Converters (ADC)
and two Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) devices,
capable of digitizing and processing 32 RF input signals.
We present the main features of the board and the signal
processing firmware that has been developed for LFAA.
Although the ADU has been conceived mainly for the low
frequency band (50-350 MHz), its use has been proved
effective also for higher frequencies (375-650 MHz). In
this paper we describe also the application of ADU as the
digital acquisition and processing system for PHAROS2,
a cryogenically cooled 4-8 GHz Phased Array Feed (PAF)
demonstrator. The final part is focused on the future
developments of the board
The low frequency receivers for SKA 1-low: Design and verification
The initial phase of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) [1] is represented by a ~10% instrument and construction should start in 2018. SKA 1-Low, a sparse Aperture Array (AA) covering the frequency range 50 to 350 MHz, will be part of this. This instrument will consist of 512 stations, each hosting 256 antennas creating a total of 131,072 antennas. A first verification system towards SKA 1-Low, Aperture Array Verification System 1 (AAVSl), is being deployed and validated in 2017
The Warm Receiver Section and the Digital Backend of the PHAROS2 Phased Array Feed
We describe the development of a multi-channel
“warm receiver section” (WS) and of a digital beamformer for
the PHAROS2 Phased Array Feed (PAF), a PAF demonstrator
for radio astronomy application across the 4-8 GHz radio
frequency (RF) band. The PAF is based on an array of 10×11
dual-polarization Vivaldi antennas cryogenically cooled at
20 K along with low noise amplification modules (LNAs). The
WS receiver can process the signals from a subset of 24
antenna elements of the array by downconverting them to an
intermediate frequency (IF) range, 375-650 MHz, suitable for
digitization by the digital beamformer. The latter is based on
the iTPM (Italian Tile Processing Module), developed for the
Square Kilometer Array (SKA) Low Frequency Aperture
Array (LFAA). We modified the iTPM firmware to synthesize
four independent beams across the 275 MHz instantaneous IF
bandwidth in the iTPM FPGAs (Field Programmable Gate
Arrays). The 24 signals are sent from the WS to the iTPM
through analogue IFoF (IF over fiber) optical links. In this
paper we present the design and performance of the WS and of
the digital bemaformer for PHAROS2