Abstract

The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) is the next-generation radio telescope currently in the design phase. It aims at becoming the world's largest radio telescope allowing scientists to map the universe at a time when the first stars and galaxies were forming. It will also investigate gravitational radiation by observing pulsating stars (pulsars), and it will conduct deep surveys helping to unravel the nature of dark energy. The flexibility of the SKA will also allow investigating new transient phenomena.

The extreme sensitivity of the SKA telescope will be reached by deploying thousands of telescope dishes and antennas, by utilizing very wide bands of the radio spectrum, and by observing large instantaneous fields of view. These properties will turn the SKA telescope into an exascale machine requiring the computational power of about a hundred million PCs and producing data rates exceeding the global internet traffic of today by far. Not only the computing and data transport will be challenging, but also the energy bill accompanying it.

In order to be able to face the computing and data transport challenges, the ASTRON-IBM project DOME was launched three years ago. In this project researchers are investigating (a) sustainable green supercomputing - reducing the energy consumption of computer systems, (b) extreme streaming - real-time processing of gigantic data volumes, and (c) nano-photonics - optical technologies for superfast data transport. These technologies include nano-photonics, accelerator technologies, 3D chips, new data storage techniques, but also novel algorithms. The presentation will give an overview of the signal processing principles of the SKA telescope, followed by a description of the approaches and results of the DOME research.

Short bio:

Albert-Jan Boonstra is Scientific Director of the DOME Project and is Programme Manager Technical Research at ASTRON, the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy in Dwingeloo. His scientific interests lie in the area of signal processing and scientific computing. In the nineties he coordinated the upgrade of the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT), after which he investigated temporal and spatial filtering techniques for suppressing radio interference at the WSRT. He conducted this research both at the R&D laboratories in Dwingeloo and at Delft University of Technology. Albert-Jan started his career at SRON Groningen where he conducted cryogenic optical and infrared test on the SWS spectrometer of the infrared astronomical satellite ISO. He also led several groups at ASTRON and headed the R&D dpt. a.i. Albert-Jan studied Applied Physics at the University of Groningen, and received his PhD at Delft University of Technology.