Misc,
SKA LFAA Station Design Report
(2020)cite arxiv:2003.12744Comment: 129 pages, 129 figures.
Abstract
The SKA1 LOW field station is inscribed in a circular area having an
effective station diameter (centre to centre) of 38 meters and has 256 SKALA4
elements. This document describes the electromagnetic design of the field
station. In particular it describes the layout design and the electromagnetic
modelling and characteristics of the station. This document describes the
effects associated with the layout and array such as mutual coupling effects,
side lobe pattern and beam shape (eg. smoothness, calibration models) and
presents the state of the art of our ability to measure the array performance
and validate the simulation work.
The current LFAA field node requirements, derived from the SKA L1
requirements, have evolved over the last years since the LFAA PDR and the
System Baseline Design. The SKA1 LOW field station has been designed to meet
those requirements and has therefore tracked their evolution (eg. sensitivity
requirements, array diameter, etc.).
The aforementioned requirements represent a very tight space with a desire
for very high sensitivity over a large frequency range (7 to 1) and wide field
of view (90 degrees cone around zenith) while keeping the station diameter to a
minimum, so as the filling factor but at the same time allowing for sufficient
space between antennas to allow for easy maintenances, amongst many others.
This results in a complex design.
