Early science with the Karoo Array Telescope test array KAT-7

The Karoo Array Telescope

The Karoo Array Telescope (KAT) will be a “1% demonstrator” for the SKA, located in a radio quiet reserve in the Karoo region of the Northern Cape province of South Africa. Besides developing technologies for the SKA project, the KAT will perform wide-field surveys that will be precursors to the eventual SKA products. The nominal specification for the KAT are listed, and the proposed science th...

Experimental Modal Analysis and Model Validation of Antenna Structures

Numerical design optimization is a powerful tool that can be used by engineers during any stage of the design process. There are many different applications for structural optimization. A specific application that will be discussed in the following paper is experimental data matching. Data obtained through tests on a physical structure will be matched with data from a numerical model of that sa...

Science with the Square Kilometer Array

Using the Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm to Generate the Minimum Test Suite in Covering Array with Uniform Strength

Up to now, several useful algorithms have been proposed to generate covering array, which is one of the branches of combinatorial testing. The main challenge in generating such arrays is generation of the arrays with a minimum number of test cases (for efficiency) at a proper time (for performance), for large systems. Covering array generation strategies are often divided into two general categ...

Customized Beam Forming at the Allen Telescope Array

One of the exciting prospects for large N arrays is the potential for custom beam forming when operating in phased array mode. Pattern nulls may be generated by properly weighting the signals from all antennas with only minor degradation of gain in the main beam. Here we explore the limits of beam shape manipulation using the parameters of the Allen Telescope Array. To generate antenna weights,...