LOFAR 2.0 Busy weeks

© ASTRON, 2018.

LOFAR 2.0 delivers a series of expansions and upgrades making the International LOFAR telescope the world's most powerful very-low-frequency, and long-baseline, radio interferometer until at least 2030. The first stage of upgrades include simultaneous LBA and HBA observing, a central clock, new calibration pipelines for the LBA, and the first steps towards an improved robustness against RFI, including windmills.

A successful delivery of these upgrades requires a thorough preparation: Which science is being addressed? What capabilities should the telescope provide? How do we operate the telescope? Which future expansions are foreseen? What are the boundary conditions such as RFI, capital and operational costs, maintainability?

In a series of busy weeks, we are laying the foundation for these upgrades by answering the above questions. The result will be a set of system engineering documents defining the use-cases, operational concepts, science requirements, system requirements and the system architecture.