Towards electromagnetic characterization of MeerKAT Telescope

Author

Wiid, Pieter Gideon ; Reader, Howard C.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Electron. Eng., Stellenbosch Univ., Western Cape, South Africa

fYear

2014

fDate

16-23 Aug. 2014

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

4

Abstract

As part of South Africa´s Square Kilometre Array (SKA) programme, the Karoo Array Telescopes (KAT) KAT-7 and MeerKAT have been developed. Lightning protection and radio frequency interference (RFI) mitigation form essential parts in the design of the KAT systems. Electromagnetic (EM) characterization of single dish structures has been done using computational electromagnetic (CEM) and reduced scale modeling. This paper describes progress on EM and RFI characterization of the MeerKAT design, with specific focus on lightning-induced RFI, lightning surge protection, and earthing.

Keywords

computational electromagnetics; earthing; lightning protection; radiofrequency interference; radiotelescopes; CEM; EM characterization; KAT-7; Karoo Array Telescopes; MeerKAT Telescope; MeerKAT design; RFI characterization; RFI mitigation; South Africa SKA programme; South Africa Square Kilometre Array programme; computational electromagnetics; earthing; electromagnetic characterization; lightning protection; lightning surge protection; lightning-induced RFI; radio frequency interference mitigation; reduced scale modeling; single dish structure; Antenna measurements; Arrays; Computational modeling; Current measurement; Lightning; Ports (Computers); Telescopes;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

General Assembly and Scientific Symposium (URSI GASS), 2014 XXXIth URSI

Conference_Location

Beijing

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/URSIGASS.2014.6929504

Filename

6929504