APERTIF successfully passed its Critical Design Review

© ASTRON, 2014

Over the last couple of years, the detailed design of APERTIF was performed. Several challenges have been overcome, such as the design of very low-noise room temperature amplifiers, the hostile RFI environment at the WSRT and the massive amount of digital data (9.8 Tbps) that must be processed in real-time. To validate the design, prototypes have been built and installed in 3 WSRT dishes. This prototype system, known as ALPHA-3, confirmed the expected performance of APERTIF.

To independently assess the system and to minimize the risk that something has been overlooked, a Critical Design Review (CDR) was organized. A strong international panel of experts was invited to review whether the APERTIF system fulfills the science and system requirements and whether all major risks were identified. The review panel consisted of the following members: Mark Bowen (CSIRO, chair), Erwin de Blok (ASTRON), Hans van der Marel (ASTRON), Lister Staveley-Smith (UWA/ICRAR), Ravi Subrahmanyan (Raman Research Institute), Gundolf Wieching (MPIfR) and Victor Pankratius (MIT Haystack Observatory). The APERTIF team supplied them with an extensive set of documentation, describing every detail of the design and initial commissioning results. During a face-to-face meeting the highlights and issues were discussed. And of course the panel went for a tour to the WSRT to see the ALPHA-3 system in action.

We are excited to report that the panel was very impressed by the quality of the documentation and the presentations and was unable to identify any significant risk that was not already reflected in the risk register. The panel concluded that, as designed, APERTIF promises to make the WSRT a world class facility for the next decade. We are eagerly looking forward to start rolling out APERTIF in the coming year.