Preparing for MID-SKA receiving concepts in South-Africa (MIDPREP)

Research Project, 2013 – 2016

MIDPREP enables knowledge and staff exchange between two leading European institutes in research, development and building radio astronomy instrumentation and three South African partners collaborating e.g. through the Square Kilometre Array precursor MeerKAT in the Karoo as framework for (inter)national human-capital, research and infrastructure. In Europe novel approaches to radio astronomy i.e. Aperture Array technology as used in the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) and Wideband Single Pixel Feed Receivers give insight in gaps to be filled and requirements for future radio telescopes. For the SKA as the world largest radio telescope operating in the next decade, with a large fraction in the Karoo, a common long term focus is developing requiring intensified knowledge exchange.Specifically, MIDPREP organizes for strengthening relevant research networks through exchange of experienced and early-stage radio scientists and engineers between South African institutes to and from Sweden and the Netherlands. Through that, MIDPREP aims at a common design view on site related aspects for radio telescopes, to advance radio-optics, calibration, ICT, processing and technology views and (possibly green) designs on MID-SKA centred in the Karoo. Knowledge from the project will be disseminated to a larger community by annual workshops. The workshops will exchange ideas focus to establish views on next collaborative steps.This project will exchange local knowledge about the future SKA site needed for building, operating and calibrating the instruments to be designed with the high level technological system design expertise of the European institutes. Simultaneously the experience with calibrating MEERKAT and LOFAR will be shared. Thus preparing all participants in this proposal in an optimal way for contributions to the SKA project.The proposed exchange program fits goals of the African-European Radio Astronomy Platform (AERAP) endorsed by the European Parliament.

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Sustainable development

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Onsala Space Observatory

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