UK Square Kilometre Array Design Study
Specialised Industry/Project Discussion Meetings
Working with STFC and the eKTN, the UK SKA design study team, SKADS, is holding a series of small, focussed meetings to build relationships with companies which have expertise in the specific technologies required for the SKA. By building strong links and design expertise with the SKADS team, companies will be in an excellent position to bid for supply to the SKA construction and will benefit from knowledge exchange within a major, advanced development.
The development cycle is until 2012 with SKA implementation from 2013 – 2020. After an initial exploratory phase from 2006-2008 we are about to enter a concerted phase of industry linkage within a funded programme.
All these developments involve high volume components which must have leading edge performance, with low power and low cost. At each meeting we will outline the issues involved and some of the approaches currently under consideration. We want to know:
· Are our hard problems actually easy? (please tell us)
- Are our easy problems really hard? (tell us what we missed)
- Would you like to know the answers to some of the same problems? (let’s work together)
Low noise, High speed Analogue Electronics
Date: Wednesday October 8th 2008
Location: Manchester
The focus here is on the requirements and implementation of the front-end analogue systems. We will consider implementations using alternative semiconductor technologies e.g. CMOS, SiGe, GaAs, and InP.
The requirements include:
o broad band low noise amplifiers (<20K) in the frequency range 70MHz to ~2 GHz
- low power, low resolution GHz class Analogue to Digital Converters, 2.5 - 3GS/s
- low-power broad-band high gain amplifiers, signal conditioning and their integration
- low-cost packaging techniques
- integration with the antenna elements
Overall System, computing and software
Date: Tuesday 4th November 2008
Location: Cambridge, Cavendish Laboratory
The SKA will be an extremely complex processing system. Key elements which are required if the SKA is to deliver its huge scientific potential include:
- A data transport and control network
- A sophisticated real-time control and monitoring system linked to the processing system
- Near real-time processing of data using "off-the-shelf" hardware
- Database systems able to provide data as needed throughout the system
- Highly efficient software implementations of algorithms
- Software tools to aid operators and users to monitor data quality and processed data
Digital Signal Processing
Date: December 2008
Location: Oxford
The aperture arrays in the SKA will need an extreme amount of digital signal processing. For an all-digital array station the requirement is to process around 150 thousand 2.5 GS/s data streams into many hundreds
of thousands of precise, narrow-band beams, with a total output data rate of ~16Tb/s. We need a clear roadmap which will take us from today’s performance to the SKA requirements.
Discussions will include:
- potential technologies to deliver the performance and flexibility needed for the phased array;
- existing or devices under-development which can be adapted to the aperture array requirements;
- algorithms for flexible beamforming;
- processing chip development: ASICs, multi-core and reconfigurable processors etc
- roadmapping hardware developments over the next 5-10 years
- approaches for precision calibration of the array
- manufacturing and integration techniques for minimising cost and power requirements
- reducing inherent radio frequency interference from the processor
Antennas and infrastructure for phased arrays
Date: January 2009
Location: Manchester
The front end electromagnetics and the manufacture of the overall array structure are crucial to the fundamental performance, stability and cost of the aperture arrays. There are major challenges in designing a system which meets the sensitivity, cost, RFI shielding for the processor systems and environmental performance for the SKA. Topics covered will include;
- A high volume element design, ideally integrated with its LNA for consistent performance;
- System integration designed for the environmental requirements in a remote, desert location;
- Design for ease of on-site assembly
- A design which will provide high MTBF, consistent with the number of components being used;
- Low-cost, effective RF and environmental screening for the processing systems to ensure that the performance of the array is not compromised by stray radio frequency interference
Contacts & Registration