D-PAD: A sparse aperture array for radio astronomy and testbed for square kilometre array technologies

The D-PAD sparse aperture array is a pathfinder for the SKA Phase 1 Aperture Array. Here, we give an overview of the D-PAD system then discuss the deployment of the first D-PAD tile. D-PAD is designed as a test-bed for novel radio astronomy techniques, such as next-generator correlator architectures, RFI excision algorithms, and calibration schemes. D-PAD aims to investigate the dynamic range achievable using sparse arrays. Proving that high dynamic ranges can be achieved with sparse arrays is an important step towards the phase 1 SKA aperture array design.