A Fully Cryogenic Phased Array Camera for Radio Astronomy

Author

Cortes-Medellin, German ; Vishwas, Amit ; Parshley, Stephen C. ; Campbell, Donald B. ; Perilatt, Phil ; Black, Richard ; Brady, Jay ; Warnick, Karl F. ; Jeffs, Brian D.

Author_Institution

Center for Radiophys. & Space Res., Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY, USA

Volume

63

Issue

6

fYear

2015

fDate

Jun-15

Firstpage

2471

Lastpage

2481

Abstract

We have developed a fully cryogenically cooled phased array feed (PAF) prototype camera and tested it on the Arecibo Radio Telescope in the summer of 2013. The camera consists of 19 dual-polarized elements on a hexagonal grid. The array elements are modified sleeve dipoles specially designed to be reinsertable, to include a noise injection coupling port and to operate at 18 K. Experimental results for observations on the Arecibo Telescope demonstrate performance of the cryogenic amplifiers, digital beamforming, and sensitivity over the PAF field of view, and provide an important proof of concept for a full-scale PAF receiver.

Keywords

array signal processing; cryogenics; radiotelescopes; Arecibo Telescope; Arecibo radio telescope; PAF; cryogenically cooled phased array feed; digital beamforming; dual polarized elements; fully cryogenic phased array camera; hexagonal grid; noise injection coupling port; prototype camera; radio astronomy; sleeve dipoles; Antenna radiation patterns; Arrays; Cameras; Cryogenics; Radio astronomy; Telescopes; Cryogenics Phased Array Camera; Cryogenics phased array camera; Digital Beam Forming; Radio Astronomy; digital beamforming; radio astronomy;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Antennas and Propagation, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-926X

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TAP.2015.2415527

Filename

7065270