Summary
International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation
2010
Session Number:2KS
Session:
Number:2KS-1
Probing The Mysteries of The Universe with The square Kilometer Array (SKA)
Raj Mittra,
pp.-
Publication Date:2010/11/23
Online ISSN:2188-5079
Summary:
Perhaps there is no other antenna project in the world has elicited more interest on the part of scientists and engineers as has the Square Kilometer Array (SKA). SKA is a radio telescope, which is being developed as a joint project - truly international in nature - with participation from 19 countries, including the UK, Netherlands, South Africa, Canada, the US, Australia, New Zealand, China and India. When fully developed, it will have a total collecting area of approximately one square kilometer, will operate over a wide range of frequencies, and its size will make it 50 times more sensitive than any other radio instrument built to-date. Unlike conventional phased arrays, SKA will rely upon digital signal processing for beamforming, and will be able to survey the sky more than ten thousand times faster than has been possible hitherto. As a consequence, it will require extremely high-performance central-computing engines, as well as long-haul optical fiber links, with a capacity that would exceed the existing Internet traffic of Europe! The array of receiving stations, which will comprise the telescope, will extend out to a distance of 3,000 km from a concentrated central core, enabling the system to push - almost to its ultimate limit - the tradition of radio astronomy, namely providing the highest resolution images. The SKA will combine the signals received from thousands of small antennas spread over a distance of more than 3000 kms to simulate a giant radio telescope capable of extremely high sensitivity and angular resolution. The SKA will also have a very large field-of-view (FOV) with a goal at frequencies below 1 GHz of 200 square degrees and of more than 1 square degree (about 5 full Moons) at higher frequencies. One innovative development is the use of phased-array technology to provide multiple FOVs. This will greatly increase the survey speed of the SKA and enable multiple users to observe different pieces of the sky simultaneously. The unique combination of a very large FOV and high sensitivity would enable the SKA to explore far deeper into the Universe than has ever been done before.