AARTFAAC Hardware Tests

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Recently, the AARTFAAC hardware required in the LOFAR superterp stations has been produced: 24 URI (UniBoard Ring Interface) boards(*), 12 UniBoards (2 per station) and 12 XGBs (10 Gigabit extension boards). All units are being evaluated thoroughly by Gijs Schoonderbeek and Sjouke Zwier.

The goal of the AARTFAAC project is to correlate all (288) LBA dipoles on the superterp with each other, giving 288x288/2=41.472 correlation products. With a bit of software, this represents a highly sensitive all-sky detector for transient phaenomena, i.e. astronomical sources that change in brightness (or polarization) on a relatively short time-scale.

In addition, 6 URI boards have been made for Oxford University, for their single-station correlator.

(*) URI: boards that bend data instead of spoons.