Stefan J. Wijnholds, Giuseppe Pupillo, Pietro Bolli and Giuseppe
Virone, "UAV-aided calibration for commissioning of phased array
radio telescopes," URSI Asia-Pacific Radio Science Conference
(URSI AP-RASC), Seoul (South Korea), 21-25 August 2016.
abstract:
Calibration of antenna positions and instrumental response is a
crucial step in the commissioning of a phased array radio
telescope. The Low Frequency Aperture Array system of the Square
Kilometre Array (SKA) is envisaged to consist of about 131,000
antennas. In this paper, we propose a strategy to efficiently conduct
commissioning calibration of such a large phased array radio telescope
using a near-field probe mounted on an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
(UAV). We demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method using
simulations. This indicates that potentially cost-saving relaxation of
requirements on placement accuracy is possible. We also propose to
validate this method in practice using the Low Frequency Array
(LOFAR).
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