Engineering Development Array 2: design, performance, and lessons from an SKA-Low prototype station
Abstract
We present the Engineering Development Array 2, which is one of two instruments built as a second generation prototype station for the future Square Kilometre Low-Frequency Array. The array is comprised of 256 dual-polarization dipole antennas that can work as a phased array or as a standalone interferometer. We describe the design of the array and the details of design changes from previous generation instruments, as well as the motivation for the changes. Using the array as an imaging interferometer, we measure the sensitivity of the array at five frequencies ranging from 70 to 320 MHz.
- Publication:
-
Journal of Astronomical Telescopes, Instruments, and Systems
- Pub Date:
- January 2022
- DOI:
- 10.1117/1.JATIS.8.1.011010
- arXiv:
- arXiv:2112.00908
- Bibcode:
- 2022JATIS...8a1010W
- Keywords:
-
- instrumentation;
- interferometers;
- radio continuum;
- general;
- calibration;
- aperture synthesis;
- Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
- E-Print:
- To appear in SPIE JATIS special section on SKA Observatory