Digital Instrumentation for the Radio Astronomy Community

University Of California-Berkeley, Berkeley CA

Investigators

Abstract

Radio astronomy has opened up new and unexpected windows on the cosmos for many decades now, and continues to provide the most definitive views of many aspects of the universe. Construction of many new and exciting instruments and telescopes is underway or planned for the near future. The investigators on this proposal have a strong commitment to making cutting-edge radio astronomy instrumentation available to the broadest possible user community at minimal cost and duplication of effort. They have pioneered open-source design of the common elements that many astronomers need, and in so doing have synergized a community spirit and team effort that have gone beyond expectations and helped to fuel the current surge of exciting radio astronomy research. In this project, they will continue that effort with a new generation of the general-purpose electronic hardware that lies at the heart of many radio instruments. The CASPER collaboration represented by this proposal has been extremely successful in delivering open source hardware and software to the wider radio astronomy community, leading to a resurgence in radio astronomy instrumentation development at the university, national observatory, and international level. The associated science return in the last decade has been immense. This proposal would continue this work with delivery of a new generation of digital hardware through a number of new initiatives, including development of the next-generation ROACH processor board used of the kind used at observatories worldwide. This project has wide-ranging broader impacts in enabling improved performance at reduced cost of a wide range of radio astronomical instrumentation. In addition, student involvement is strong, community dissemination of design practices is broad, and there is a clear commitment to stimulation of community cooperation and sharing the excitement of advancing the state of the art of radiofrequency instrumentation. Funding for this project is being provided by NSF's Division of Astronomical Sciences through its Advanced Technologies and Instrumentation program.