Issue |
A&A
Volume 655, November 2021
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | A5 | |
Number of page(s) | 18 | |
Section | Astronomical instrumentation | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202040086 | |
Published online | 28 October 2021 |
The Aperture Array Verification System 1: System overview and early commissioning results
1
ASTRON, Dwingeloo, The Netherlands
e-mail: benthem@astron.nl
2
ICRAR/Curtin University, Perth, Australia
3
INAF/IRA – Institute of RadioAstronomy, Bologna, Italy
4
INAF – Osservatorio Astronomico di Arcetri, Florence, Italy
5
INAF – Istituto di Astrofisica Spaziale e Fisica Cosmica, Milan, Italy
6
INAF – Osservatorio Astronomico di Catania, Catania, Italy
7
INAF – Headquarter, Rome, Italy
8
CNR-IEIIT, Turin, Italy
9
Bologna University DEI, Bologna, Italy
10
University of Florence DINFO, Florence, Italy
11
Institute of Space Sciences and Astronomy, University of Malta, Msida, Malta
12
University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
13
University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
14
SKA Organization HQ – Jodrell Bank, Cheshire, UK
15
ATC/STFC, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
Received:
8
December
2020
Accepted:
22
September
2021
The design and development process for the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope’s Low Frequency Aperture Array component was progressed during the SKA pre-construction phase by an international consortium, with the goal of meeting requirements for a critical design review. As part of the development process a full-sized prototype SKA Low ‘station’ was deployed – the Aperture Array Verification System 1 (AAVS1). We provide a system overview and describe the commissioning results of AAVS1, which is a low frequency radio telescope with 256 dual-polarisation log-periodic dipole antennas working as a phased array. A detailed system description is provided, including an in-depth overview of relevant sub-systems, ranging from hardware, firmware, software, calibration, and control sub-systems. Early commissioning results cover initial bootstrapping, array calibration, stability testing, beam-forming, and on-sky sensitivity validation. Lessons learned are presented, along with future developments.
Key words: instrumentation: miscellaneous / methods: observational / techniques: image processing / telescopes
© ESO 2021
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