A.B. Smolders and M.P. van Haarlem (eds.

)
Perspectives on Radio Astronomy Technologies for Large Antenna Arrays
Netherlands Foundation for Research in Astronomy - 1999
THE TECHNOLOGY CHALLENGE FOR THE NEXT GENERATION RADIO
TELESCOPES

ARNOLD VAN ARDENNE
NFRA/ASTRON
P.O. Box 2
7990 AA Dwingeloo
The Netherlands
E-mail: ardenne@nfra.nl
1 Introduction
At the occasion of NFRAs 50-th celebration, at the time the Westerbork upgrade is nearing its
completion and the dawn of this century, it seemed appropriate to orient toward the instruments for
radioastronomy that will lead the onset of the next century. The most ambitious and far reaching
instrument now generally become known as the Square Kilometre Array [1], will concentrate on the
science questions made possible by its orders of magnitude increase in sensitivity together with a
large field of view, three decades frequency coverage and large resolution range among others.
Generally felt desirable to fully operate in the second decade, the period of up to ten years should be
used for setting up the international framework, organise the science and the scientific community,
addressing the R & D at the appropriate level and identify the funding schemes. The Science
Conference last week in Amsterdam aimed toward addressing outstanding science issues [2] requiring
SKAs capabilities to unravel and the complementary role of radio astronomy in the larger framework
of astrophysics and instrumental developments in shorter i.e. (sub) mm and optical/IR wavelengths
regimes that will precede SKA.

The Technology Conference held at NFRAs premises in Dwingeloo on the other hand, aim to
concentrate on aspects of immanent importance to the technical realisation of SKA. For this purpose,
scientist and technologists from organisations like NFRA, from other knowledge institutions and from
industries around the world, have been joining these three days while attending a fairly condensed and
loaded technology program. Broadly speaking, their presentations covered introductionary talks about
concepts, enabling technologies ranging from antennas, (integrated) front-ends, photonics, signal
processing and packaging trends in electronic Industry to calibration, interference mitigation
strategies and data processing. It not only shows the breadth of nowadays technology and advanced
thinking, but aim to indicate the relevance for SKA and the gaps to be closed e.g. requirements and
relevant industrial developments, on the really important challenges in order to bring its realisation a
step nearer. No doubt, this conference will be followed by others to keep track of current and
emerging technologies vis a vis new insights in astronomy.

Traditionally, the technical evolution of radio astronomy comprised regular upgrades (retrofitting) of
modular subsystem blocks being part of stable and long lasting observing platforms. Examples of
these platforms at cm and longer wavelengths are the (recently upgraded) Westerbork and VLA
systems of the 70-th, MERLIN and the VLBA in the 80-th and the GMRT in the 90-th. In parallel,
Very Long Baseline Interferometry evolved over several decades with baselines now reaching out as
far as space through an orbiting radiotelescope. Continuous incremental developments of subsystems
i.e. receiving, recording, data processing systems and software resulted in enhanced mapmaking
capabilities e.g. through model based closure relations [3,4]. This now makes possible unpolarized
maps up to a 100000:1 dynamic range on a routine basis together with calibrated large field surveys
[e.g. 5]. As a consequence, ground-based radio-astronomical systems remained state-of- the-art, value
for money instruments with an approximate 5-10% yearly operational costing envelope of the
nationally funded investments of order 100 MUS$ or less.



x
With SKA, new roads need to be explored as required by its order of magnitude performance
improvement. Some of the requirements as set out as a result of the workshop in [6] are shown in
Table 1. To achieve these, different system concepts or combinations of these exist [7], each having
their own merits. With various levels of national support and organisation, these are topics of active R
& D in a number of different countries. NFRA among others is for example pursuing the concept of
the electronically controlled array antennas [8] for a number of reasons e.g. the multi-beam capability
and adaptive interference rejection and undoubtedly a slight bias toward this concept, could be noted
at this conference.

Sensitivity A
eff
/T
sys
: 2 x 10
4
m
2
/K, Surface Br. 1K@ 0.1(Continuum)
Frequency Range: 0.03 20 GHz, Instant. BW: 0.5+ f/5 GHz,
10
4
spectr. Channels, 2 widely separated simultaneous Freq. bands
Spatial Coverage: 2 Sterad, FOV: 1square deg.@ 1.4 GHz, max. prim.
beam separation 100 degree(low freq.) or 1 degree @ 1.4 GHz (high
freq.), Ang. resol. 0.1 @ 1.4 GHz, number of instantaneous
Beams: 100
Imaging 10
8
pixels, 10
6
dynamic range clean beam @ 1.4 GHz
Polarisation - 40 dB (purity in map)

Table 1: Overview of prominent SKA straw-man requirements (adapted from [6]).

Other issues relate to the location and precise configuration/distribution of the telescope collecting
area the latter being closely related to imaging quality (more stations) and confusion requiring more
and larger stations (smaller beams) versus resolution. Most of the (combined) requirements of Table 1
are difficult to achieve. However, a realistic view combined with optimism will simply point to some
of these as subsystem characteristics for which a relatively straightforward road ahead can be defined
and specifications be defined. Others, are system level issues that, irrespective of the various
concepts, are more difficult to translate into a set of engineering specifications.
For example how to achieve sub-microJansky sensitivity levels in images with a large (routinely, say
beyond 1 in a million or better) dynamic range vs. confusion, calibration, polarisation and interference
issues over a large frequency range of a decade or more. With regard to RFI-mitigation, present
activities led by the astronomical community are directed toward getting across that frequency space
is not only a political, regulatory, astronomical or technical issue, but reaches beyond the regulatory-
only needs of active and passive users toward an ecological issue of prime cultural importance. It
remains nevertheless essential that SKA R&D efforts are concentrated toward exploiting new
techniques to reduce adverse effects for astronomy. No doubt, implications and results are important
to other communities as well as the use of radio is so much increasing in todays wireless society.

While the different concepts can be elements of programs with national centres of gravity, executed in
an atmosphere of friendly competition (cooptition), synergy must be maximised. A lot remains to be
done to co-ordinate all these activities in the international framework and to inform the community
about our progress. This progress should be directed toward an agreed first level set of requirements,
and a concept design and architecture. It is clear that the SKA proposition is an extremely interesting
R & D vehicle for educational purposes and holds promise to involve a new generation of specialists.
Fortunately, as a non-technical result of this conference, various countries have agreed that an
appropriate level of R & D is mandatory to make possible a well thought choice between concepts
around 2005. Also it formed the basis to a recently erected body i.e. the International SKA Co-
ordinating Committee to steer, monitor and facilitate progress.



xi
2 The concepts as they evolve
At an earlier stage, the Square Kilometre Array, now known as SKA was considered as a single
concept instrument of a decade bandwidth or more. The collecting area was dispersed over about 30
stations mostly distributed in a 30 50 km radius with a number of outstations at 150 km in a Y-
shaped fashion, each having an approximate diameter of 300m [7]. The precise number of these
stations and their geometric arrangement and location are dictated by arguments of imaging, spatial
resolution, frequency and brightness sensitivity and hence are elements of parameter space and prone
to change. As the number for the newly proposed (sub) mm array ALMA [9] is now set at 64 for the
purpose of good imaging, it is unlikely that the number of stations for SKA remains to be 30. See e.g.
[10]. Also, other arrangements may be more optimal see e.g. [20]. The physical realisation of each
station can be different leading to different concepts. In principle this is because an aperture can be
synthesised in a non-unique [11] way in order to realise a desired effective receiving area. This offers
the potential for a near infinite number of solutions but for various reasons including todays
instruments, the major concepts so far are limited to five or six[8]. Briefly stated, the station concepts
and the major supporters thus far are a large spherical reflector pursued by BAO in China [12,13].
Efforts are now concentrating on a first station called FAST of 500 m diameter with adaptive surface,
a number of low cost large reflector of about 20 25 m paraboloids promoted by the Indian NCRA,
many mass produced Television Receive Only (TVRO)- like antennas by the US SETI institute. As a
result of recent studies for near future SETI, efforts are now concentrated to the realisation of the 1
hectare telescope (1hT) [14 ], a large adaptive reflector (LAR) antenna in which the receiver(s)
are located in a teetered balloon above an adaptive ground-based reflector with large F/D by the
Canadian DRAO [15], the concept of electrically steerable active array antennas by the Dutch NFRA
and combinations of these e.g. hybrid arrays [16] and focal plane arrays by ATNF in Australia

Other solutions are part of active research [17] and more recently, the study of a Luneberg Lens array
concept. More advanced possibilities may be different e.g. a tile of the electronic array may be
realised as a systems in silicon (system on silicon) or as a 3D frequency selective surface with
electronically or optically controlled reconfigurable dipole elements [28].

























20 GHz
LOFAR
.02
0.20
2.0
1hT
M-SKA/ Electr.
Adapt.Array
Indian Reflector
LAR
Large Sp. Refl./FAST
CONCEPTS
Figure 1: Presently studied concepts versus expected optimum frequency range
(GHz).

xii
At the Sydney workshop, I presented the case [6a] that the three-decade instrument resulting from the
science requirements (see Table 1) could not be based on the same concept and integration of
technologies. It is more likely that a dedicated instrument of approximately a decade wide bandwidth
would cover each of three possible frequency bands. This would have the advantage that instruments
could be optimised from different points of view i.e. science, technology, and costs or otherwise while
beneficial in the international framework. Consequently SKA would be the generic abbreviation of
the total of the low-, mid-, and high-band instruments.

At the occasions of the ESTEC conference [16] and the SKA technical meeting following the URSI-
GA in Lille[18], I pointed out that electrically short active antennas are worth considering and not
limit ourselves to 50 ohm systems for the antenna to amplifier match. This was because electrically
short active dipoles offer extremely wide frequency coverage as proven by various military and
industrial [eg.19] applications outside astronomy and was investigated for a decade-wide radio-
astronomical purpose in a then recent ESA study [20]. In this case the application was at extremely
low frequencies not considered for SKA, but the point was made that the sky noise is much higher
than the receiver noise and given the essentially reactive antenna, voltage rather than power matching
would offer optimum noise performance. In the context of SKA, Bregman [21 and earlier references]
solidified the argument for a different technology telescope by pointing out that this solution would
actually be useful up to about say, 200 MHz. The basic argument being that only beyond that
frequency, the receiver noise starts to dominate the sky noise and below that the sky noise increases
with a 2.6 power law going to lower frequencies. As the effective area using electrically short active
dipole arrays, scales with wavelength squared i.e. A
eff
= c.
2
, the brightness sensitivity would
nevertheless still improve with a 0.6 power law with increasing frequency.

Interesting enough, recent scientific discussions by part of the astronomical community in Holland
and the US call for a dedicated wide band low frequency array (ALOFAR@) [21] ranging from 15 MHz
over 150 MHz. In view of the above, the concept now studied is an electrically short active dipole in
a sparse electronically steered array configuration. Indeed, new technical possibilities in the area of
signal processing and in active antenna developments, now allow to divert from classical low
frequency array approaches as implemented nowadays, sub-GHz array instruments.

As it now turns out, the advanced techniques for LOFAR are partially overlapping with technical
approaches developed in the context of the mid- range (say from 0.2 - 2 GHz) electronic array R & D
program at NFRA. This includes other aspects important to be addressed for the concept e.g. the
multi-beaming, calibration and interference issues

From the point of view of the electronic (power matched, possibly not to 50 ohm) array concept, the
maximum frequency of the mid-range is about 2 GHz. As before, in this type of antenna the aperture
is coherently sampled and hence requires two receiving elements per wavelength. Based on
straightforward arguments of quantities, required power and cost, the concept will necessitate a
prohibitively large number of active antenna elements of over 10
8
beyond this frequency.
Furthermore, the effective area associated with a single basic element antenna in this concept shows a
negative power law [-0, -2] with increasing frequency. In order to maintain a large effective area over
a decade bandwidth, it is therefore desirable to synthesise the aperture with a minimum number of
elements say 2 or 3 [15] each operating at a different frequency range within the total decade. Clearly,
a technological challenge then is to find a suitable element arrangement for dual polarisation with a
power law vs. frequency close to 0. See e.g. work in [22, 23]. Subsequent studies should model the
multi-element arrangement just mentioned (see [24] showing some preliminary work) and to find a
low cost architecture that includes the optimum active low noise receiving part.

The Indian paraboloidal reflector antenna, when made cheap as a further development of the GMRT
dishes, will due to the large gaps in the wire mesh primarily be suitable for the low- and mid-band
SKA say from about 50 MHz 1.5 GHz. The large prime focus spherical reflector dish concept is

xiii
suitable for lower frequency operation from 100 MHz but will not be suitable much beyond about 2
GHz. The prime focus LAR concept aim to operate from a few hundred up to about 10 GHz and
possibly higher frequencies. On the opposite part of the spectrum, the 1hT dishes due to their small
size of about 4 5 m probably inhibits useful observations below about 0.5 GHz. Owing to their solid
surface, they are designed to be best suitable to cover the mid- and high band SKA.

All in all, the mainstream effort today can therefore best be summarised as in Figure 1, showing the
concepts and the expected nominal frequency range.

All these efforts aim at a (combined) concept for SKA as a versatile multipurpose astronomical
instrument roughly characterized by its multi-band (3 decades), multi-beam (>10) capability with
improved dynamic range and imaging capability (100-1000x) and an A
eff
/T
sys
> 10
4
m
2
/K. In terms of
keeping track on its operational performance, blind on-line quality assessment will be desirable.

As an example, Figure 2 shows the A
eff
/T
sys
of hypothetical telescopes implemented in three
technologies i.e. a low band active dipole array, a mid band electronic adaptive array with three
different elements to cover a decade bandwidth and for frequencies beyond 2 GHz, a low noise array
of reflective paraboloids. The figure [also shown in 6a] is based on reasonable assumptions regarding
system noise versus frequency i.e. T
sys
= 800K at 100MHz and decreasing toward higher frequencies
due to the reduced sky noise to about 100K at 200MHz where the receiver noise and the sky noise are
assumed equal. For the midband array, T
sys
= 100 at 200MHz and decreasing to 40K at 2 GHz and for
the high band is between 25-30 K beyond 2 GHz up to 10GHz. With regard to the effective areas of
these instruments, the low band array constitute a square kilometre at 200 MHz and increasingly
larger (power 2 law) toward lower frequencies. For the mid band array, the nominal area is again a
square kilometre but as said, it decreases at increasing frequency ( -1 and 2 power laws are shown).
For the high band array, the effective area is assumed constant and only 100.000 m
2
which is at
least one order of magnitude larger than any other existing or planned telescope. For example, the
newly planned ALMA (sub)mm array has an effective area of less than 10.000 m
2
. When combined
with an assumed 20 K low noise receiving system, the A
eff
/T
sys
of this hypothetical array is still a
respectable 0.4 10
4
m
2
/K.
10 GHz .10 1.0
A
eff
/T
sys
(m
2
/K)
10
4
10
3
Act.dipole
array
Many Small
paraboloids
Electr. Adapt.Array
10
5
Figure 2: An example of the effective area versus frequency of hypothetical
telescopes Implemented in three technologies [6a]. See the text.

xiv
Together with considerations like expected performance, technology, cost and maximum science
return, maintainability and location/site among others, a mechanism to conclude on the final (choice
of) concept(s) must be set up around 2005. Before that time, these and other as of today newer
concepts, must engage in active R & D programs addressing at least some if not all of the major
challenges.
3 Challenges
Not only in leading the path toward the realisation of SKA, but also when in use the challenges for the
astronomer are many. To mention a few:
1. Achieving (sub)microJansky sensitivity in the calibrated map in spite of image plane and
ionospehric effects, the effect of beam smoothness and stability versus scanning and
adaptivity and the application of new observing modes e.g. short exposures and/or multi-
beaming.
2. The presence of much stronger (say order 10
7
) sources in the field of view in spite of
confusion- and self noise requiring multipatch- multi source selfcalibration techniques.
3. Achieve an adequate minimum level of radio interference through frequency filtering, spatio-
temporal filtering eg. deterministic nulling.
4. Deal with new methods of data handling (non deterministic) eg. automatic feature searches.
5. To configure a three decade instrument.

Qualitatively, the astronomical requirements will impact the technical realisation (e.g. architectural
design and implementation) for the different system concepts in their own specific and a priori neither
always obvious nor clearly defined way. A system-level approach is required opening the way to
achieving consensus about an optimised system.

For the SKA system designers, the question is therefore how to translate the requirements from Table
1 into engineering specifications and subsequent design to cost and specifications. This is to be done
together with additional ones e.g. high dynamic range in fully polarimetric maps given the harsher
RFI environment and the increased confusion problem due to the brighter sky. From these follows the
need for generic system descriptions and modelling which includes polarisation. Also the importance
of calibrating the sky and the effects of the ionosphere mostly at lower frequencies and the need to set
up a program for RFI - mitigation strategies will effect design parameters throughout the system. The
simulations should lead to an optimised architectural and functionally integrated design with
predictable, robust and reliable behaviour. This conference will at least touch upon some of these
aspects. See for example the contributions on Calibration and Simulation- and Data processing
techniques. Worth mentioning, is the international AIPS++ activity that among other essential
functionalitys, aims at suitably modelling essential parameters including ionosphere through the
Measurement Equation also essential to calibrating the instrument[33]. This activity when suitably
directed for the purpose of SKA perhaps at a later stage may well prove a prime example of directed
international co-operation.

There is also an issue here about the availability of simulation tools of such a completed system,
being dependent on the telescopes conceptual approach. Over time, the approach should reflect the
rapid pace of technology change and consider the modularity vs. upgradability issue. We may
conclude that depending on the concept, SKA will be build as a non-upgradable instrument for a finite
lifetime of say 10-15 years. Although contrasting todays realities, this may politically prove the
correct approach while at the same time probably easing the technical project aspects.

The issue of dual band polarised receiving systems over a wide decade bandwidth taking the system
noise into account is not trivial. For paraboloidal or spherical reflectors, this comes closest to
extrapolating performance of todays wide band systems and at least intuitively, is likely to be doable
from the technology maturity point of view. These systems have the added advantages that with an

xv
appropriate feed design, the collecting area is effectively constant and even although more than one
feed may be required for optimal performance, the problems are embedded in a single advanced
receiver per telescope within a traditional mechanical platform. This is contrasting the concept of
electronically scanned aperture arrays. Although fully in he spotlight for the purpose of military and
telecom e.g. base-station applications in general, the emphasis remains largely on technology and the
issues are about identifying enabling technologies, their trends and the integration of technologies and
functions.

Furthermore, assuming that the project investment as a whole should not exceed todays 600MUS$
limit, the cost per square meter is required to be of order a few hundred US$ or less. This is to over an
order of magnitude lower than paraboloidal reflectors commonly in use now and a few times less than
the GMRT. Hence, the costing issue should be intrinsically part of the design and development effort.
With regard to the electronic array concept new to radio astronomy, a priori experience while learning
as we go, required to be addressed as soon as possible. Hence, NFRA embarked on an extensive
initial technical R & D program [25] which is about to enter its fifths year and which now starts to
actually produce new and valuable insights. Others working on other concepts, have put into place
programs which are also underway.



Figure 3 shows a generic functional lay-out of a telescope receiving system. Depending on the
(combination of) concept(s), the details will differ in terms of implementation, technology etc.
To optimise the system and interplay of technologies to cost and function, a systematic and stepwise
development process up to and including industrialisation is required, starting as early as possible but
in any case after the selection of concepts.

For the Antenna- and Receiver designers, there are challenges to be found on the aspects of electro-
magnetic modelling of wide band antennas, the matching to the low noise amplifier and integration
(MMIC, RFIC, RF-beamforming, packaging etc.) versus semiconductor technology like (InP,
GaAs,Si/SiGe, bipolar vs. CMOS) and function. In achieving a large dynamic range of say order 10
7
,
up to the A/D converters (see Fig. 3) for the purpose of RFI mitigation after which digital signal
processing, takes over, active and passive filtering techniques versus gain distribution should be
considered. This in itself opens a range of technological opportunities of relevant approaches also to
Object
Signal
conditioning
A/D
Sensor
Digital
Signal
Processing
Beamforming/
Correlation
Control/Configuration/data acq.
Offline/imaging SW
Telescope as receiving system basic functional lay-out
Figure 3: Generic functional layout of a smart receiving system.
Depending on the specific implementation, the sensor may for example
be seen as an individual antenna array element or as the paraboloidal
reflector. Also, the architectural and functional complexity of the digital
signal processing is largely depending of the specific implementation.

xvi
fields outside radio astronomy. For single optimised systems (e.g. paraboloids), it seems obvious to
consider the issue of cryogenically cooled systems which may or may not include high T
c

superconducting filters combined with the low noise pre-amp. For these, the more or less
conventional closed cycle approaches eg. Stirling cycle machines or Pulse Tube refrigerators which
lack moving parts, can be considered. It remains to be seen if emerging low cost cryogenic
technologies for mass market applications now considered for high speed computers, will become
attractive e.g. considering cost, power and reliability. In as far as the frontend (package) as a whole is
concerned, it is likely the area where cost, power, signal distribution and packaging are most
important considerations. Again, this is primarily so for the electronic adaptive array approach due to
the large quantity of receiving elements. As an example, Table 2 depicts the expected technology
versus cost of an all-electronic frontend, based on present work [26].


Time scale 1995-2003 2000-2008 2007-2013
RF front-end
Technology Multilayer RF board Singlelayer RF board Kapton/foam+FR4
# components 50 SMD 15 SMD Single MCM-C/D
Cost (US$) 35 55 15 35 7 - 15
RF-IC
Technology GaAs/PHEMT SiGe/HBT <0.1micron CMOS
Cost (US$) 10 30 3 7 1 - 2

Table 2: RF Front-end packaging and RF-IC roadmaps for SKA electronic adaptive arrays [26].
Performance and functionality are assumed equal for the different implementations.


Similar extrapolations can be drawn up with regard to the A/D converters and their physical
implementation. To day, about 12 bits are favoured based on Signal to Interference ratios are
considered allowing for digital pre-processing (e.g. FFT, filtering/RFI removal) prior to lower bit
correlation. For A/D-converters, both power consumption and cost per conversion tend to decrease
with a factor of 10 per 7.5 years expecting to make 400MHz single chip 12 bit- converters available in
2010 for less than 5 US$ [29]. As these considerations are generally applicable to the electronic
domain, time and technology develops in a direction favourable to the desirable costing envelope.
In as far as the realisation of the frontend as a whole is concerned, that may be layered as a
sandwiched structure with subsequent antenna-frontend-beamformer-processor layers.

For the signal processing engineer living on the boundary of hard- and software, mathematics and
physics, the basic challenge is transforming the say 30-10
8
inputs (depending on the concept) into
about 100 instantaneous beams on the sky. At this point, it is not easy to see how this major functional
extension can be achieved from a principle point of view in the simple paraboloidal reflectors
considered thus far. This of course should be done in some optimum way involving a level of
hierarchical design based on scalable design structures. At the same time, spatial-temporal
interference algorithms should be implemented in some optimal way. See eg. [27] and references.
The required processing power expected for SKA albeit formidable (over 10
16
operations/ sec), is still
following Moores law and in line with expected technology developments four years ago [16].

Like any many station correlator (ALMA requires a 64 station correlator), SKA may be considered as
an embedded system in which software largely determines configurability, controlability and
functionality based on an otherwise well defined hardware suite. For these heterogeneous systems,
(parametrising) hard-/software boundaries and distributed parallel processing of the massive amounts
of data require adequate simulation tools and modelling toward some optimised architecture. In this,
the mapping of the computer algorithms on the architectural and physical implementation based on
generic microprocessors to DSPs and specific ASICs, is essential. In particular for the electronic
array but not limited to this concept, scalability of an optimised hierarchical architecture, is an
additional challenge. In as far as the on-line software methodology is concerned, functional

xvii
simulation (again) is essential. Together with model- and component (e.g. reusable designs and code)
based development in the context of hard-software co-design and verification, state-of-the-art
approaches offer challenging prospects. Non-deterministic approaches based on neural networks
and/or fuzzy logic e.g. for the purpose of on-line quality assessment need to be considered. As stated
earlier, the large amount of astro-data, may also require such approaches so far uncommon for
example operating on (calibrated) data bases according to associative search rules (e.g. feature
search).

All electronic technologies are not necessarily the ultimate answer. For the electronic array, photonic
technologies may reach up into the frontend for the purpose of optical beamforming. In this and the
other concepts, the role of (in)coherent photonics will also be important in the LO- and time
generation and dissemination, the interconnects, data networks and, more speculative, even for the
purpose of optical processing [30]. Some of these are areas are actively pursued as development
projects for ALMA [31,32] while others are elements of research in NFRAs SKA R&D program
[25].

4 In Closing
An enterprise like SKA will only succeed with the largest persistence the community can offer. Not
only, will a new generation of technologists and astronomers alike, find a vehicle for many years of
challenging R&D vehicle up to the first real observations, but with some vision it is also essential for
keeping a field of utmost importance vividly alive amidst other cultural developments.
New technologies and their integration induce new and innovative approaches to old problems, and
inherently also lead to new functional capabilities beneficial to astronomy. It is for this reason that
active R&D programs for SKA also involving the wider community outside traditional astronomy
institutes to tackle the numerous challenges, is essential to its ultimate success. Fortunately, the
timeliness of SKA as a complement to other major astronomical endeavours and the progress made so
far, leave no doubt as to its ultimate success as a major science instrument for the next decades.

References
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after the Calgory workshop, Aug. 1998.
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rd
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xviii
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[17] A. Parfitt, A low - cost reflector antenne element for SKA, This Conference.
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[19] U. L. Rohde, J. Whitker, T. T. N. Bucher, Communication Receivers, sec ed., McGraw-Hill,
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[20] Very Low Frequency Array on the Lunar Far Side, Report by the Very Low Frequency
Astronomy Study Team, ESA SCI(97)2, October 1997.
[21] J. Bregman, LOFAR, This Conference.
[22] D. Schaubert, Wideband Vivaldi Arrays for large aperture antennas, This Conference.
[23] B. Smolders, Phased-array system for the next generation of radio telescopes, This Conference.
[24] Z. Popovic, Broadband Antennas for SKA, This Conference.
[25] A. van Ardenne, The SKA technical R & D program, NFRA Newsletter, Sept. 1998.
[26] J.G bij de Vaate, Personal communications, NFRA, 1999.
[27] A. Leshem, Some comments on deconvolution and RFI removal, This Conference.
[28] Z. Popovic, Photonic approaches and components, This Conference.
[29] A. Kokkeler, D.Kant, A.Gunst, A/D converter research for SKA, This conference.
[30] Multi Univ. Res. Initiative (MURI) on RF/Photonics, USA, 1997.
[31] MMA Project Book, www.tuc.nrao.edu/demerson/project_book.
[32] A. van Ardenne, A. Bos,The ALMA future correlator; proposal for a prototype study.
[33] J.Noordam, Calibrating SKA, a Challenge, This Conference