a preparatory phase proposal for the square kilometre...
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Grant Agreement number: 212243 Project acronym: PREPSKA Project title: A Preparatory phase proposal for the Square Kilometre Array Funding Scheme: SP4-Capacities, Combination of CP & CSA, Integrating Activities / e- Infrastructures / Preparatory phase Date of latest version of Annex I against which the assessment will be made: 5th May 2011
Periodic report: 1st 2nd 3rd x 4th □ Period covered: from 01/04/2011 to 31/03/2012 Name, title and organisation of the scientific representative of the project's coordinator1: Prof. P. Alexander, Astrophysics, Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge Tel: +44 (0) 1865 273352 Fax: +44 (0) 1223 354599 E-mail: [email protected] Project website address: http://www.jb.man.ac.uk/PrepSKA
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Declaration by the scientific representative of the project coordinator1 I, as scientific representative of the coordinator of this project and in line with the obligations as stated in Article II.2.3 of the Grant Agreement declare that: X The attached periodic report represents an accurate description of the work carried out in this project for this reporting period; � The project (tick as appropriate): □ has fully achieved its objectives and technical goals for the period; X has achieved most of its objectives and technical goals for the period with relatively minor deviations; □ has failed to achieve critical objectives and/or is not at all on schedule. X The public website is up to date, if applicable. X To my best knowledge, the financial statements which are being submitted as part of this report are in line with the actual work carried out and are consistent with the report on the resources used for the project (section 6) and if applicable with the certificate on financial statement. X All beneficiaries, in particular non-profit public bodies, secondary and higher education establishments, research organisations and SMEs, have declared to have verified their legal status. Any changes have been reported under section 5 (Project Management) in accordance with Article II.3.f of the Grant Agreement. Name of scientific representative of the Coordinator1: .. Paul Alexander............................... Date: .2014/10/10. Signature of scientific representative of the Coordinator1: .
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1. Publishable summary The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) is the next generation, multi‐purpose radio telescope. It is a transformational instrument that will play a major role in answering key questions in modern astrophysics and cosmology. It will be one of a small number of cornerstone observatories across the electromagnetic spectrum that will provide astrophysicists and cosmologists with a transformational view of the Universe. The SKA will be built in three phases, each phase will deliver ground‐breaking science – this staged construction and deployment is made possible by the SKA being a radio interferometer. For the 4 years from 2008 to 2012, the global radio astronomy community has, through the Preparatory Study for the SKA (PrepSKA) project, been engaged in the development of the system design for the SKA as a major part of the Preparatory Phase of the project.
The issues addressed by PrepSKA before the pre‐construction phase of the SKA are: 1. The design for the SKA 2 The location of the SKA and the required infrastructure 3 The legal framework and governance structure under which SKA will operate 4 The most cost‐effective mechanism for the procurement of components of the SKA 5 Funding mechanisms for the SKA
PrepSKA has coordinated and integrated R&D work from around the globe in order to develop the first costed design for Phase 1 of the SKA, and a deployment plan for the full instrument. With active collaboration between funding agencies and scientists, all of the options for the policy‐related questions have been investigated.
During the final year of PrepSKA, the project has brought to a conclusion its original aims.
Thanks to the work of the PrepSKA governance and legal framework team, it has been possible to provide the groundwork for establishing the SKA Organisation as a UK legal entity, to govern the SKA project in the preconstruction phase. This culminated with 7 national partners signing the agreement on Nov 23rd 2011, when the SKAO came into being.
A funding model, focusing on understanding funding options in the preconstruction period 2012 to 2017, has been initiated, and a survey of funding agencies’ views on these options has been completed. Information on this topic has been gathered from other large research infrastructures and a report prepared on collective best practice. A tool for modelling funding scenarios has also been developed. The business plan and an initial estimate of the cost of the current technical concept have been delivered.
Various options for procurement have been studied, and a final summary document providing procurement guidelines has been produced.
A report on the social and economic benefits of the SKA has been generated.
The Project Execution plan, covering the preconstruction and Construction phases, has been produced, with a detailed Statement of Work and a Work Breakdown Structure.
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A major achievement has been the completion of the site selection and measurement campaign. Expert panels evaluated the information, and as a result, two locations have now been selected by the SKA organisation, one in South Africa, and one in Western Australia. The South African site will host the SKA1‐MID frequency array (0.45‐3 GHz) comprising 190 new dish antennas and the 64 dishes of the precursor Meer KAT antennas. The number of dishes will rise to 3000 in SKA Phase 2. The Australian site will host both the SKA1‐LOW frequency array (0.07‐0.45 GHz), consisting of 250,000 antennas grouped into aperture array stations (1,000,000 antennas in SKA Phase 2), and the SKA1‐Survey telescope, which will combine 60 new dishes with the 36 ASKAP precursor dishes.
In terms of the detailed design, the major achievement in Period 3 has been the completion of all the SKA Element Concept Design Reviews (CoDRs), and the remaining delta CoDRs. Two additional CoDRs, for the Monitor and Control work and the mid frequency aperture arrays, have also taken place. These reviews were presented to external panels from industry and the astronomical community, and were well attended by other community members. The results lay the groundwork for the subsequent design phase of the SKA. The prototyping of the Dish Verification Antenna 1 is well under way, and construction of the prototype support structure has begun. A small test Aperture Array has been developed, and is being used to start testing antenna element options.
Finally, all the deliverables have been completed and delivered.
PrepSKA has been extremely successful and demonstrated the critical importance of addressing technical, policy and funding issues alongside one another. The true success of PrepSKA can be seen in the successful transition of the project to the next (pre‐construction, or detailed design phase) with a new legal entity, the SKA Organisation (SKAO), managing the project. This is a truly global structure with membership consisting currently of 10 countries represented on the SKAO Board by national‐level agencies (science ministries or funding agencies).
Objectives
The principal objectives of PrepSKA have all been achieved
• to produce a deployment plan for the full SKA, and a detailed costed system design for Phase 1 of the SKA;
• to characterise the two candidate SKA sites in Southern Africa and Australia • to analyse the various risks associated with locating the SKA at each of the sites; • to develop options for viable models of governance and the legal framework for the SKA
during its construction and operational phases; • to develop options for how the SKA should approach procurement and how it should involve
industry in such a global project; • to investigate all aspects of the financial model required to ensure the construction,
operation and, ultimately, the decommissioning of the SKA; • to demonstrate the impact of the SKA on society, the economy and knowledge. • to integrate all of the activities, reports and outputs of the various working groups to form
an SKA implementation plan.
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Detailed Report
Status after 48 months of PrepSKA
PrepSKA began on 1st April 2008. The project had a relatively slow start, as documented in the previous reports, and has experienced major revisions in strategy, which are reflected in the Description of Work in the first contract amendment. The result is that progress was somewhat slower than originally expected. However, a new work programme was defined, and a Project Execution Plan (included in the PrepSKA deliverables as part of Deliverable 7.3, and also at http://www.skatelescope.org/uploaded/38221_SKA_Project_Execution_Plan.pdf) was produced to chart the project development after the end of PrepSKA. Much progress has been achieved in most areas, with Concept Design Reviews (CoDRs) having taken place for all the technical work packages. Below is a brief summary of progress in each work package.
WP1: Management
− The handover of the coordinator role, from Steve Rawlings to Paul Alexander, occurred at Prof. Rawlings’ request due to ill health, some months before his untimely death. Administration has continued from Manchester as before.
− The coordinator, PA, attended many meetings during the reporting period in his capacity as PrepSKA coordinator as well as attending telecons of the PrepSKA executive. He was active in disseminating PrepSKA activity and progress to the wider SKA community throughout the period.
− The third contract amendment has been accepted by the EC. The main result of this has been to bring the status of CSIRO from a Clause 9 beneficiary to a regular beneficiary.
− There have been no further payments as the Second Periodic Report has yet to be accepted. − Regular reporting to the Board has continued, giving an immediate overview of the status
and progress of each work package. The project manager has attended Board meetings to report on the financial status.
− Preparations for the close of the project have been made, including a telecon, and a presentation at the last Board meeting to attribute responsibilities.
− An audit certificate has been obtained for UMAN, and is submitted with this report.
WP2: SKA Design
− The major achievement during the reporting period was the successful completion of the system delta Concept Design Reviews (CoDR), as well as the successful completion of all of the SKA Element CoDRs.
− Two additional CoDRs were held over and above those originally planned to be part of PrepSKA. They were the Monitor and Control CoDR, and the delta CoDR for the mid frequency aperture arrays.
− The CoDRs were presented to panels largely consisting of external review panel members ranging from industry representatives to representatives from optical and radio astronomy projects and facilities.
− The CoDRs were well attended by the community and engagement and interaction were very good.
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− The development and building of the Dish Verification Antenna 1 prototype progressed well and construction of components of the dish structure has begun. Once completed the dish will be deployed at DRAO in Penticton.
− A small Aperture Array test system has been developed and has been deployed in Cambridge. The array is being used to test various antenna element options.
− Preparation work for the preconstruction phase in the form of a comprehensive Work Breakdown Structure and Statement of Work was successfully completed towards the latter parts of PrepSKA. The results of this work will be very valuable for the project going forward towards the preconstruction phase
WP3: Site characterisation
− The site measurements campaign was completed. − A report on the optimum configuration for the stations has been produced. − Expert panels were set up to evaluate the information, and external consultancies were
asked to produce quotations for various aspects of the work such as infrastructure, power, security, etc.
− A body of information was provided that allowed differentiation between the two sites for the purpose of hosting the SKA.
WP4: SKA governance and legal framework
− The Legal Work stream has produced a signatory‐ready implementation agreement to establish the UK national legal entity to govern the SKA project in the preconstruction phase.
− On Nov 23rd 2011, 7 national partners signed the agreement and the SKA Organisation came into being.
− An ongoing proposal, for “Global Organisation for the SKA – GO‐SKA”, to establish the worldwide institution, is now funded by the EC.
WP5: SKA procurement and industrial involvement
− The WP5 team at INAF in Italy are charged with developing the options for the procurement policy for SKA and in defining a strategy for involving industry.
− The main deliverable, a major document entitled ‘Towards a Procurement Strategy for the SKA’, is now delivered.
WP6: SKA funding model
− STFC in the UK run WP6, the aim of which is the development of a funding model for the SKA. Focus has shifted to understanding funding options in the period 2012‐2017, during the Pre‐Construction Phase.
− A policy survey of Funding agencies has been completed. − Information has been gathered from other large research infrastructures on best practice,
and a report is in preparation. − A modelling tool, for modelling a range of scenarios, funding breakdowns and schedules, has
been developed. A GDP–based funding model has also been completed.
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WP7: SKA Implementation Plan
− The draft report on social and economic benefits has been circulated. − The initial costing of the current technical concept has been delivered. − The final implementation report, consisting mainly of the Project Execution Plan, the
Work Breakdown Structure, and the Business Plan, has been delivered.
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2. Project objectives and timescales for the period
This report focuses on the activities in the no‐cost extension period of the project, from April 1st 2011 to March 31st 2012 (T+48). Consequently, the project objectives have been subject to revision. In the latest Description of Work the extension was only reflected in adjustments to the milestones and deliverables of WP2. However, it has become apparent that all work packages will benefit from this extension, and the new milestones and deliverables are given in Table 1. In order to give a perspective of the progress as a whole, the tables below list the deliverables and milestones in the whole project period. The deliverables from the first 18 months of PrepSKA are highlighted in grey, and those for the second 18 months in turquoise. The deliverables from the current period are left white. Detailed descriptions of the activities associated with each of the items in the current period are provided in the sections on the Work Packages 2‐7. Table 1: Deliverables within the whole project period
Del # Deliverable name WP #
Lead bene-ficiary #
Estimated indicative person months
Nature Dis-semination level
Delivery date (project month)
D1.1 1st Periodic Review 1 1 12 R PU 19 D1.2 2nd Periodic review 1 1 16.00 R PU 38 D1.3a 3rd Periodic Review 1 1 2 R PU 48 D1.3b Final Report 1 1 17 R PU 48 D2.1 System Concept Design
Review Report (CoDR) 2 9 19.15 R PU 23
D2.2 System Requirements Review
2 9 19.30 R PU 36
D2.3 System preliminary design report
2 9 19.3 R PU 58
D2.4 Dish design input to CoDR Report for the Dish Verification Programme (DVP)
2 9 15.96 R PU 26
D2.5 Dish design input to SRR. Report for Dish Verification programme (DVP)
2 9 32.22 R PU 60
D2.6 CoDR Report for the AAVP
2 9 20.21 R PU 30
D2.7 SRR Report for the AAVP 2 9 41.49 P PU 50 D2.8 CoDR for Signal Transport
and Networks 2 9 5.47 R CO 26
D2.9 SRR for signal Transport and networks
2 9 5.62 R CO 56
D2.10 Final Signal transport and 2 9 5.78 R CO 48
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networks Wrap‐up progress report
D2.11 CoDR Report for Digital Signal processing
2 9 14.89 R PP 26
D2.12 Final Digital signal processing wrap‐up report
2 9 22.34 R PP 48
D2.13 CoDR Report for Software and Computing
2 10 28.42 R PU 33
D2.14 Final Software and computing wrap‐up Progress report
2 15 28.42 R PU 48
D2.15 Periodic WP2 Progress report 1
2 9 0.7 R PP 18
D2.16 Periodic WP2 progress Report 2
2 9 0.7 R PP 36
D2.17 Periodic WP3 progress Report 3
2 9 1.03 R PP 48
D3.1 Report on Ionospheric Scintillation and TIDS
3 9 0.0 R CO 7
D3.2 Deliver RFI hardware and software
3 9 0 O CO 12
D3.3 Report of phase referencing and self‐calibration
3 9 0 R PU 12
D3.4 Report on optimum configuration for SKA
3 9 0 R CO 18
D3.5 Report on influence of physical configuration on design, operation and costs
3 9 0 R CO 36
D3.6 Report on infrastructure deployment, timescales, costs and operational models
3 9 0 R CO 30
D3.7 Report on Risk Analysis of the Science Environment
3 9 0 R CO 30
D3.8 Report on RFI measurements in Australia
3 9 0 R CO 33
D3.9 Report on RFI measurements in South Africa
3 9 0 R CO 33
D3.10 Report on Radio Quiet Zones for short‐listed SKA sites
3 9 0 R CO 36
D3.11 Final Site Report 3 9 0 R CO 36
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D4.1 Study on best practice governance and legal frameworks
4 2 10.7 R PP 19
D4.2 Options for governance and legal frameworks
4 2 10.7 R CO 27
D4.3 White paper on governance model and legal framework
4 2 14.6 R CO 33
D5.1 Guidelines for procurement
5 4 5 R PP 18
D5.2 Inventory of possible contributors
5 4 5 R RE 36
D5.3 Report on procurement models
5 4 5 R RE 30
D5.4 Draft options paper on procurement
5 4 5 R RE 30
D5.5 Inventory of national standpoints, policies and goals
5 4 5 R RE 30
D5.6 White paper on procurement options
5 4 5 R CO 33
D5.7 White paper on procurement for SKA
5 4 6 R PP 34
D6.1 Report on National funding opportunities
6 1 7.2R PP PP 13
D6.2 Report on options for private or corporate funding
6 1 7.2 R CO 33
D6.3 Draft options paper for funding model for SKA
6 1 7.2 R PP 25
D6.4 Final paper with full funding model options for interested SKA funding agencies
6 1 7.2 R CO 33
D6.5 White paper for financial models for SKA
6 1 7.2 R PP 35
D7.1 Draft costed system design and technical reports
7 9 0 R PP 48
D7.2 Paper on the Socio‐Impact of the SKA
7 9 0 R PP 26
D7.3 Full SKA implementation plan draft
7 1 0 R PP 48
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The project status in terms of deliverables can be most conveniently visually summarised in terms of a Gantt chart shown in Table 3. The green items have been delivered. Each deliverable now has a corresponding milestone. The milestones are listed in Tables 2a and 2b. Table 2a lists them by workpackage, and Table 2b gives them in date order. All milestones have now been achieved. Table 2: List and schedule of milestones for the whole project a) Ordered by Workpackage
Mile‐stone # Milestone name WP#
Lead Benficiary #
Delivery date from Annex I
Delivery date after extension Comments
MS2 First Periodic Report 1 1 18 20 UMAN also involved, complete
MS3 Second Periodic Report 1 1 36 37 UMAN also involved
MS7 System Concept Design Review (CoDR) 2 9 22 22
MS8 System Requirements Review (SRR) 2 9 36 46
MS35 Dish design input to CoDR for Dish Verification programme 2 9 26 39
MS59 CoDR Report for Aperture Array Verification programme (AAVP) 2 9 30 36
MS73 CoDR for Signal Transport and Networks 2 9 26 39
MS90 CoDR Report for Digital Signal processing 2 9 26 36
MS104 C0DR Report for software and computing 2 9 33 43
MS128 Periodic WP2 Progress Report 1 2 9 18
MS129 Periodic WP2 Progress Report 1 2 9 36 36
MS132 Report on Ionospheric Scintillation and TIDS 3 9 7 36 Complete
MS133 Deliver RFI hardware and software 3 9 12 27 Complete
MS134 Report on phase referencing and self‐calibration 3 9 12 45 Complete
MS135 Report on optimum configuration for SKA 3 9 18 30 Complete
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MS136
Report on influence of physical configuration on design, operation and costs 3 9 36 38 Complete
MS137
Report on infrastructure deployment timescales, costs and operational models 3 9 30 41 Complete
MS138 Report on risk analysis of the science environment 3 9 30 40 Complete
MS139 Report on RFI measurements in Australia 3 9 33 48 Complete
MS140 Report on RFI measurements in South Africa 3 9 33 48 Complete
MS141 Report on radio‐quiet zones for short‐listed SKA sites 3 9 30 38 Complete
MS 142 Final site report 3 9 36 41 Complete
MS152
Study on best practice governance and legal framework 4 2 19 22 Complete
MS153 Options for governance and legal frameworks 4 2 27 37
MS154 White paper on governance and legal framework 4 2 33 46
MS159 Guidelines for procurement 5 4 12 Complete
MS160 Inventory of possible contributors 5 4 36 45
MS161 Report on procurement models 5 4 30 44
MS162 Draft options paper on procurement 5 4 30 44
MS163 Inventory of national standpoints, policies and goals 5 4 30 44
MS164 White paper on procurement options 5 4 33 41
MS165 White paper on procurement for SKA 5 4 34 46
MS173 Report on national funding opportunities 6 1 13 13 Complete
MS174 Report on options for private or corporate funding 6 1 33 46
MS 175
Draft options paper for funding model for SKA 6 1 25 25 Complete
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MS176
Final paper with full funding model, options for interested parties 6 1 33 47
MS177 White paper for financial models for SKA 6 1 35 48
MS184 Paper on socioeconomic impact of SKA 7 1 26 40
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b) In Date order
Mile‐stone # Milestone name WP#
Lead Benficiary #
Delivery date from Annex I
Delivery date after extension Comments
MS132 Report on Ionospheric Scintillation and TIDS 3 9 7 36 Complete
MS133 Deliver RFI hardware and software 3 9 12 27 Complete (PR1)
MS134
Report on phase referencing and self‐calibration 3 9 12 45 Complete
MS159 Guidelines for procurement 5 4 12 Complete (PR1)
MS173 Report on national funding opportunities 6 1 13 13 Complete (PR1)
MS2 First Periodic Report 1 1 18 20 UMAN also involved, complete (PR1)
MS128 Periodic WP2 Progress Report 1 2 9 18
MS135 Report on optimum configuration for SKA 3 9 18 30 Partially complete
MS152
Study on best practice governance and legal framework 4 2 19 22 Complete (PR1)
MS7 System Concept Design Review (CoDR) 2 9 22 22 Complete
MS 175
Draft options paper for funding model for SKA 6 1 25 25 Complete (PR1)
MS35
Dish design input to CoDR for Dish Verification programme 2 9 26 39
MS73 CoDR for Signal Transport and Networks 2 9 26 39 Complete
MS90 CoDR Report for Digital Signal processing 2 9 26 36 Complete
MS184 Paper on socioeconomic impact of SKA 7 1 26 40
MS153 Options for governance and legal frameworks 4 2 27 37
MS59
CoDR Report for Aperture Array Verification programme (AAVP) 2 9 30 36
MS137
Report on infrastructure deployment timescales,costs and 3 9 30 41
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operational models
MS138 Report on risk analysis of the science environment 3 9 30 40
MS141
Report on radio‐quiet zones for short‐listed SKA sites 3 9 30 38
MS161 Report on procurement models 5 4 30 44
MS162 Draft options paper on procurement 5 4 30 44
MS163
Inventory of national standpoints, policies and goals 5 4 30 44
MS104 C0DR Report for software and computing 2 9 33 43
MS139 Report on RFI measurements in Australia 3 9 33 48 Confidentiality
MS140
Report on RFI measurements in South Africa 3 9 33 48 Confidentiality
MS154 White paper on governance and legal framework 4 2 33 46
MS164 White paper on procurement options 5 4 33 41
MS174
Report on options for private or corporate funding 6 1 33 46
MS176
Final paper with full funding model, options for interested parties 6 1 33 47
MS165 White paper on procurement for SKA 5 4 34 46
MS177 White paper for financial models for SKA 6 1 35 48
MS3 Second Periodic Report 1 1 36 37 UMAN also involved
MS8 System Requirements Review (SRR) 2 9 36 46
MS129 Periodic WP2 Progress Report 2 2 9 36 36
MS136
Report on influence of physical configuration on design, operation and costs 3 9 36 38
MS 142 Final site report 3 9 36 41
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MS160 Inventory of possible contributors 5 4 36 45
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Table 3: Gantt Chart showing milestones and deliverables status
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3. Work progress and achievements during the period
The following sections describe, in detail, the progress of the work in each of the activity work packages. WP1 Management
Participants
Work package number 1 Start date or starting event: T+0 months
Work package title Management of the SKA Preparatory Phase Project Activity Type MGT
Participant id 1 9 Person-months per beneficiary: 9 36 (+
3)
Person months delivered this period
21.5 19.36
Progress
Coordinator’s report
The period covered by this report has been an exciting period for the project. The work coordinated through the PrepSKA programme has led directly to the project being able to progress to Preconstruction. This is a major milestone for the SKA project and represents the transition to a true global project able to deliver the envisaged infrastructure. The steps in this transition and the associated PrepSKA work are as follows:
1. The Project Execution Plan (PEP) was produced as the basis on which to proceed to the preconstruction phase. This was based on input from all the PrepSKA deliverables. An international review committee chaired by Gary Sanders reviewed the PEP in March 2011: they concluded that the project was ready to progress to the next phase and also provided valuable input to the process. The PEP was a major step towards the final PrepSKA deliverable (WP7). [http://www.skatelescope.org/uploaded/38221_SKA_Project_Execution_Plan.pdf]
2. A new legal entity, the SKA Organisation, has been created. It is a company limited by guarantee registered in the UK. This legal entity was formed in a period of only approximately six months between the decision to proceed and the conclusion of negotiations on legal documentation. This was possible because of the delivery of the PrepSKA policy work packages. The results of the policy work packages on the legal structure (WP4) and financing (WP6) were both critical since these elements are both required in order to set up a sustainable new legal entity. The SKA Organisation has as its members, government‐level representation (science ministry or funding body typically). It is
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the governing body of the SKA project going forward and currently has 10 nations represented formally realising the global nature of the SKA.
a. The business plan for this new legal entity is the plan for taking the SKA project through to the point of construction of Phase 1. This combines a sound financial model, analysis of the technical viability and a detailed plan for taking the technical work to readiness for construction. The deliverable of WP7 which is the detailed plan for taking the SKA forward provided the business plan and is a combination of all of the outputs from the policy and technical work packages and formally subsumes the PEP.
2. The first decision of the SKA Organisation has been to determine the final siting of the SKA. Here PrepSKA work packages have been critical in supporting the managing the site‐selection process (WP3). Within the PrepSKA work both independent technical assessment of the final sites, and also the planning and coordination of the site‐selection process itself has been undertaken, in particular the preparation of the detailed requirements against which the two site proponents had to respond.
a. All the reports for the site choice have been completed and are now available publicly on line [https://www.skatelescope.org/home/technicaldatainfo/site‐documentation/ ]
b. They were submitted to either the SSG (the SKA Siting Group) or SSAC (SKA Site Advisory Committee) expert panels, and final recommendations were made on the 6th Feb 2012, as a direct result of the work of WP3. On the 25th May 2012 the choice of a dual site, in South Africa and Australia was announced.
3. The new SKA Organisation has a new Headquarters (HQ) based in purpose built accommodation on the site of the Jodrell Bank Observatory in the UK. Although it is legally an independent organisation as described above the location of the HQ site was chosen after a competition between the founding members of the SKA Organisation to act as host.
The next stages of design work for the SKA as described within the SKA Organisation business plan build directly on the PrepSKA delivered work.
• The project has undergone a successful transition to a systems engineering approach to the design. While the detailed system engineering model adopted is one based on pragmatism, it provides a formal frame work in which to manage a set of global contributions to the detailed design work. The following deliverables of WP2 underpin the detailed design work going forward.
• The principle delivery of PrepSKA, the overall system design, forms the basis on which to proceed to detailed design.
• The transition to a system‐engineering approach developed in PrepSKA forms the basis for the engineering approach during the detailed design of the preconstruction phase.
• Successful completion of all element Conceptual Design Reviews forms an essential sound basis for taking forward the detailed design and allows the SKA Organisation to produce a formal Request for Proposals to undertake the detailed design; the model and overall strategy for this process having being designed and established based on studies undertaken through the PrepSKA policy workpackages. The reports from the CoDRs form a critical element of the system‐level documentation package.
Two elements which were originally envisaged as PrepSKA milestones have now been incorporated within the detailed planning for the next stage:
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• The full System Requirements Review was originally planned to take place within the PrepSKA period. This has not proved possible, and the programme of work for the detailed design in the next stage incorporates a combined PDR/SRR for all elements and the system overall. What has been submitted are the preliminary requirements documents, which will contribute towards this eventual Review. This provides some critical advantages for the system engineering approach adopted enabling a faster convergence on a final detailed system and element design at PDR to be achieved.
• The full Preliminary Design Review (PDR), which by definition must follow some time after the SRR, will not now be carried out until the end of 2014. The document submitted in this case is the description of the design as understood at the end of PrepsKA .
The preconstruction phase is being managed by the SKA Organisation with work packages being undertaken by consortia who have formed in response to the Request for Proposals. This new management with a strong centralised project team who have ultimate design authority is a direct result of perhaps the most important aspect of the PrepSKA programme which was the creation of the first, relatively small, project office which has grown and transitioned into a central office which currently is in excess of 40 staff.
Management activities
Contract Amendments
A third contract amendment was required to enable CSIRO, who were originally Partners covered by Clause 9, to receive payment for both Phil Crosby’s secondment in the UK, and for RFI monitoring equipment. In the event, the amendment also covered the replacement of Keith Mason by John Womersley as Coordinator and replacement of Steve Rawlings by Paul Alexander as Scientific Coordinator, after Professor Rawlings’ untimely death. This amendment has been accepted by the EC on 7th September 2012. The EU could not process the 2nd Periodic Report until the amendment had been accepted, and this has delayed the payments associated with this report, which are still awaited.
The revised status of CSIRO means that they have now had to submit financial reports (Form Cs) for the whole project, and the budget has had to be re‐distributed so that there is funding available for them to receive payment. This requires a credit transfer from CSIRO to UMAN, which has taken place after 1st July 2013, in order to keep the repayment and the receipt of EC funding in the same CSIRO financial year. UMan has already made the budget transfer to CSIRO in the 3rd amendment. CSIRO will then be refunded for justified expenses in the normal way by the EC.
A fourth amendment has also been necessary to update the STFC bank account details and allow payments for Periods 2 and 3 to be made.
Quarterly Reports
The Quarterly reports have been continued, the last one in April 2012 forming a final internal summary report to the Board.
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Status of Finances
A full financial report covering the period 1 April 2011 to 31st March 2012 is given below. An audit certificate for UMAN is supplied, all other benefactors not reaching the 375k€ audit level.
All C forms for period 3 have been submitted, including the stamped, signed physical copies..
Management of the web and wiki sites
Simon Haynes (STFC) has continued to coordinate the wiki development activity for all of PrepSKA, and he has also maintained the website www.PrepSKA.org which allows the work of PrepSKA to be known to a larger audience. It is comparable with other ESFRI project web presences and complementary to the main project website. The PrepSKA site has also been linked to the www.skatelescope.org website.
Meetings attended
The Co‐ordinator attended the meetings shown in Table 4 below, in addition to regular PrepSKA board executive telecons.
The project manager attended the last Board Meeting in at Schiphol airport, to present the final finance report and the plan for wrap‐up of the project, and also attended the regular SPDO local management meetings.
Each work package continued to have numerous meetings focussed on specific activities. Table 4 below lists the meetings which are either project‐wide or focussed on management and co‐ordination activities.
Project status
The project has made major progress since the last report. The change to the system engineering methodology has been critically important in structuring the project in a way which will enable it to proceed to the preconstruction phase. This is discussed in more detail above under the coordinators report.
Each work package has provided an individual report on their activities. This section summarises progress with respect to the plan in the new Description of Work. PrepSKA now has 49 deliverables, all of which have been delivered. The progress is best summarised in the Gantt chart (Table 3 above).
WP2 was always expected to take longer than the original 36 months timeframe of the project. The twelve month no‐cost extension has allowed a more realistic schedule to be drawn up. As can be seen from the Gantt chart, progress came back under control.
The structure of the project is such that most of the deliverables have fallen due in the last months. This was inevitable given the nature and structure of the project. Critical in the engineering work is
21 | P a g e
the delivery of the CoDRs for each sub‐system. Substantial documentation has been produced for each of these which form the principle engineering deliverables and the majority of the input to the summary report deliverables. Careful monitoring of the progress to production of these documents sets has been done by the SPDO team. The refinements suggested at the System Delta CoDR have been helpful in narrowing down and focussing activities. All CoDR reports are now available, and provided as deliverables with this report. The extensive material behind the reports can also be made available if necessary.
The establishment of the new legal entity to manage the project during the preconstruction phase, as well as the identification of the resources required for this phase has made extensive use of the work done as part of the PrepSKA policy work packages. At the same time this practical experience will feed back into the work and reports from these work packages especially when they address the policy aspects concerning the SKA1 construction and operations phase.
Issues
1) A general Risk Register for WP 2 has been established and the two major issues are shown in Table 5 below. The main register has been updated for the system delta CoDR, with impact assessments and new risks added. (Please refer to the document MGT‐090.010.010‐RE‐003, Rev C, dated 2011‐02‐15 for more detail.) The first risk refers to the fact, noted above, that the SRR and PDR deliverables have not been completed within the timescale of the PrepSKA project, and so interim documents which will eventually contribute to these reviews have been submitted.
2) The difficulty experienced in co‐ordinating such a large project has been a useful lesson for the preconstruction phase; actions decided on at high levels take a long time to propagate to other levels. As the project gathers momentum this is slowly improving. The establishment of the SKA Organisation has provided an opportunity for the nations involved to refocus their efforts. However, the uncertainty over the mechanisms for supporting the work on the various work packages, and the uncertainty in the tendering mechanism has introduced further delay. These problems are alluded to in the second major risk in Table 5.
3) The communications difficulties have been exacerbated by the unfortunate need to change scientific coordinator three times within the project lifetime. The fact that the administration has been carried out at a different site from the last two co‐ordinators has also meant that processes which should have been simple have become long drawn‐out.
4) The decision to opt for a dual site has introduced further complication into the project, and has resulted in the need for much of the work done in PrepSKA to be revised in the beginning of the pre‐construction phase to take account of the dual site requirements.
5) The fact that work immediately started intensively on the Preconstruction Phase, though in itself an excellent outcome, has had the effect of delaying the final reporting, as most of the deliverables authors are heavily involved in what is now a very fast moving and demanding project.
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Table 4: General or Project Meetings in the reporting period
Date Meeting Venue # partici‐pants
URL Attended by Coordinator
2012
18-20 April 2012 Resolving The Sky – Radio Interferometry:
Past, Present and Future (RTS 2012)
Manchester,GB 101 http://www2.skatelescope.org/indico/conferenceDisplay.py?confId=178
Yes
April 3rd 2012 Board meeting, Schipol Netherlands Invitation only Yes 15-16 February 2012
Software and Computing Concept Design Review
Manchester GB Invitation only
14-16 February 2012
Pathways to SKA Science in Australasia (SKANZ 2012)
Auckland, NZ 70 http://www.aut.ac.nz/study‐at‐aut/study‐areas/computing‐‐mathematical‐sciences/beyond‐the‐classroom/skanz‐2012‐conference
6-10 February 2012
System Engineering meeting Manchester, GBB Invitation only
Invitation only
30 January – 3 February 2012
SKA Phase 1 Pre-construction Stage 1 WBS/SOW Development meeting
Manchester, GB
Invitation only
18 January 2012 SKA Board of Directors meeting Manchester, GB
2011 12-16 December 2011
AAVP 2011: Taking the AA Programme into SKA Pre-Construction Dwingeloo, NL
6-9 December 2011
SKA Site Advisory Committee (SSAC) meeting
London, GB
3 December 2011
Executive Committee of the SSEC meeting Daejeon, KR
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30 November – 2 December 2011
Workshop on East-Asian Collaboration for SKA Daejeon,Korea http://canopus.cnu.ac.kr/ea‐ska/
8-9 November 2011
Monitoring & Control Concept Design Review Pune, IN
8 November 2011
UK PrepSKA Oversight Committee meeting Swindon GB
6-10 November 2011
ADASS XXI: Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems
Paris, FR http://www.adass.org/
17-21 October 2011
Annual PrepSKA WP2 meeting Manchester, GB
92 http://www2.skatelescope.org/indico/conferenceDisplay.py?confId=107
Yes
3-7 October 2011 62nd International Astronautical Congress Cape Town,
ZA
http://iac2011.com/
22-23 September 2011
SKA Innovation with Industry Wellington, NZ http://rutherfordinnovationshowcase.co.nz/events/#SKA
19-23 September 2011
Surveys & Simulations – The Real and the Virtual Universe Heidelberg, DE
18-30 Sept 2011 Second Workshop on 3rd Generation Calibration in Radio Astronomy
Portugal 39 http://www.astron.nl/3GC‐II/index.php
18-22 September 2011
ECOC 2011: 37th European Conference and Exhibition on Optical Communication Geneva, CH http://www.ecoc2011.org/
8-9 September 2011
SKA Site Advisory Committee meeting Washington DC, US
Invitation only
6-9 September 2011
The Path to SKA-low Workshop AUSKA Site Advisory Committee meeting Perth, AUS http://www.icrar.org/news/pastevents/SKA‐
low
13-20 August 2011
XXXth URSI GA: Union Radio-Scientifique Internationale (URSI) General Assembly and Scientific Symposium
Istanbul, TR
26-29 July 2011 APRIM 2011: 11th Asia-Pacific IAU Regional Meeting Chiang Mai,TH http://www.iau.org/science/meetings/past/g
eneral_assemblies/981/
25-29 July 2011 CALIM 2011: Calibration & Imaging workshop
Manchester, GB
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http://www2.skatelescope.org/indico/conferenceDisplay.py?confId=171
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18-20 July 2011 MeerKAT Preliminary Design Review Cape Town, ZA
Invitation only
13-15 July 2011 Receptors (Dish) Concept Design Review Penticton, BC, CA
Invitation only
7-8 July 2011 Engineering and Industry Opportunities in the SKA
Banff, AB, CA 152 http://www.ska2011.org/Home.html No
6 July 2011 SKA Forum 2011 Banff, AB, CA 235 http://www.ska2011.org/Home.html Yes
5 July 2011 SKA Founding Board meeting Banff, AB, CA Invitation only 4-5 July 2011 Astronomy in the Era of Big Data Banff, AB, CA 131 http://www.ska2011.org/Home.html Yes
4 July 2011 SKA Science and Engineering Committee meeting – SSEC 7
Banff, AB, CA Invitation only
28-30 June 2011 Signal Transport and Networks Concept Design Review
Jodrell Bank Observatory, GB
Invitation only
14-15 June 2011 IEAC 2011: International Engineering Advisory Committee review meeting
Manchester, GB
Invitation only
9-10 June 2011 XLDB-Europe 2011: eXtremely Large Data Base Edinburgh, GB http://wiki.esi.ac.uk/XLDB‐Europe_2011
30 May – 2 June 2011
Canadian Astronomical Society: CASCA 2011 London, ON,
CA
251 http://casca2011.uwo.ca/index.html
30 May – 1 June 2011
SPICE: Software Process Improvement and Capability dEtermination in Software Dublin, IE http://www.spiceconference.org/
24-25 May 2011 Information Processing and Computing for a Future Internet Application Aveiro, PT
23-27 May 2011 Understanding Galactic and ExtraGalactic Foregrounds: A Road to Success Zadar, HR
22-26 May 2011 AAS: 218th American Astronomical Society meeting Boston, MA,
US
http://aas.org/meetings
9-10 May 2011 SKA Workshop Madrid, ES
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3-5 May 2011 Innovations in Data-Intensive Astronomy Green Bank,
CA, US
39 http://www.nrao.edu/meetings/bigdata/ No
2-5 May 2011 2011 Joint Conference of the IEEE International Frequency Control Symposium and European Frequency and Time Forum
San Francisco,
CA, US
http://www.ifcs‐eftf2011.org/
19-20 April 2011 Aperture Array Verification Programme (AAVP) Concept Design Review
Schipol, NL Invitation only
14-15 April 2011 Digital Signal Processing Concept Design Review
Manchester, GB
Invitation only
10‐15 April 2011 MEARIM-II: 2nd Middle-East and Africa Regional IAU meeting
Cape Town, ZA http://mearim2.saao.ac.za/
2 April 2011 (a.m.),
Inaugural meeting of the Founding Members of the SKA Board
Rome, IT Invitation only
30 March – 1 April SKA Science and Engineering Committee meeting – SSEC 6
Rome, IT http://www2.skatelescope.org/indico/ conferenceDisplay.py?confId=110
Yes
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Table 5: Risk Register highlights for WP2
Risk description Owner Date identified Mitigation Target date Rating
WP2 objectives and milestones will not be met Cloete 20/10/2011 Investigations are complete and four milestones will not be met. The slippages has already been taken up in the Pre‐construction Project Execution Plan and the impact is therefore quite low.
November 2010.
Moved to January 2011.
Realised and Mitigated
Engagement and progress within the software and computing domain
Cloete/ Hall
01/03/2011 After a brief surge in activities and engagement within the software and computing domain, the activities have slowed down again. Urgent action is required to regain momentum and ensure that the PrepSKA objectives are met. Cloete to initiate actions in this regard.
01/05/2011 High
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Beneficiaries Table 6 below lists the project beneficiaries as the project came to a close. Table 6: Updated list of Beneficiaries
Project Number 212243 Project Acronym PrepSKA
List of Beneficiaries
# Name Short name Country
Project entry month
Project exit month
1 SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY FACILITIES COUNCIL STFC United Kingdom 1 48
2 NEDERLANDSE ORGANISATIE VOOR WETENSCHAPPELIJK ONDERZOEK N W O Netherlands 1 48
3 CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE CNRS France 1 48
4 ISTITUTO NAZIONALE DI ASTROFISICA INAF Italy 1 48
7 NATIONAL RESEARCH FOUNDATION NRF South Africa 1 48
8 NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL CANADA NRC‐HIA Canada 1 48
9 THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER UMAN United Kingdom 1 48
10 STICHTING ASTRONOMISCH ONDERZOEK IN NEDERLAND ASTRON Netherlands 1 48
11 MAX PLANCK GESELLSCHAFT ZUR FOERDERUNG DER WISSENSCHAFTEN E.V. MPG Germany 1 48
12 CORNELL UNIVERSITY Cornell United States 1 48
13 THE CHANCELLOR, MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE UCAM United Kingdom 1 48
14 THE CHANCELLOR, MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD UOXF.DL United Kingdom 1 48
15 COMMONWEALTH SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH ORGANISATION CSIRO ATNF Australia 1 48
16 JOINT INSTITUTE FOR V.L.B.I. IN EUROPE (J.I.V.E.) JIVE Netherlands 1 48
17 OBSERVATOIRE DE PARIS OBSPARIS France 1 48
18 UNIVERSITE D'ORLEANS UORL France 1 48
19 University of Calgary UCAL Canada 1 48
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20 RIJKSUNIVERSITEIT GRONINGEN RUG Netherlands 1 48
21 INSTITUTO DE TELECOMUNICACOES IT Portugal 1 48
22 DEPARTMENT OF INNOVATION INDUSTRY SCIENCE AND RESEARCH DIISR Australia 1 48
23 National Astronomical Observatories, CAS NAOC China (People's Republic of) 21 48
25 Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute KASI Korea (Republic of) 20 48
26 TATA INSTITUTE OF FUNDAMENTAL RESEARCH*TIFR TIFR India 21 48
27 CHALMERS TEKNISKA HOEGSKOLA AB CTHA Sweden 21 48
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Table 6: Unfunded Matching effort
Beneficiary short name
WP1 WP2 WP2 WP3 WP3 WP4 WP5 WP6 WP7 Per Beneficiary
Not audit-able
Audit-able
Not audit-able
Audit-able
Not audit-able
Not audit-able
Not audit-able
Not audit-able
Not audit-able
Total auditable
Total not auditable
Overall total Total EC contribution Unfunded matching
Management RTD RTD RTD RTD Support Support Support Support Personmonths Finance €
STFC (1) 36 6 6 6 3 36 21 57 1,478,737.52 521,384.79 957,352.73
N W O (2) 8 7 7 3 25 25 746,705.60 376,767.16 369,938.44
CNRS (3) 6 6 2 5 19 19 160,000.00 160,000.00
INAF (4) 36 6 6 6 3 36 21 57 1,174,498.14 405,058.87 769,439.27
NRF (7) 72 36 3 6 3 3 123 123 799,500.00 799,500.00
NRC-HIA (8) 467.5
3 2 3 0.5
476 476 10,251,423.07 10,251,423.07
UMAN (9) 3 186.81 4 2 2 3 197.81 197.81 7,734,459.49 3,986,788.10 3,747,671.39
ASTRON (10) 36 110
9 2 2 3
36 126 162 1,842,365.00 150,000.00 1,692,365.00
MPG (11) 18 35.1 1 18 36.1 54.1 303,084.00 303,084.00
Cornell (12) 154
6 6 6 3
175 175 1,312,500.00 1,312,500.00
UCAM (13) 188 1 189 189 3,163,659.13 3,163,659.13
UOXF.DL (14) 123.18
1
124.18 124.18 761,712.00 761,712.00
CSIRO (15) 164 77 2 1 2 246 246 3,689,295.00 3,689,295.00
JIVE (16) 12 0.5 12.5 12.5 218,240.00 218,240.00
OBSPAR (17) 24 78
0.5
24 78.5 102.5 670,548.80 670,548.80
UORL (18) 12 0.5 12 0.5 12.5 131,708.35 131,708.35
UCAL (19) 29.5 0.5 30 30 360,000.00 360,000.00
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RUG (20) 18 0.5 18.5 18.5 192,400.00 192,400.00
IT (21) 29 1 30 30 216,540.00 216,540.00
DIISR (22) 3 12 6 6 3 30 30 240,000.00 240,000.00
NAOC (23) 0 0.00 0.00
KASI (25) 25 0.5 25.5 25.5 180,000.00 180,000.00
TIFR (26) 0 0.00 0.00
CTHA (27) 0 80,000.00 60,000.00 20,000.00
SPDO 251 3 3 3 260 260 1,512,813.40 1,512,813.40
NSF 1 1 1 1 4 4 0.00
AUI 1 1 0.5 1 3.5 3.5 84,874.00 84,874.00
FG-IGN 0.5 0.5 1 1 4,000.00 4,000.00
VR 0 0 0 0 0.00
ICRAR 240 0.5 240.5 240.5 3,660,668.38 3,660,668.38
NRAO 24 0.5 24.5 24.5 313,600.00 313,600.00
CETC54 0 0.00
Total 3 126 1456 36 102 58 53 44.5 45.5 162 1762 1924 41,283,331.88 5,499,998.92 35,783,332.96
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WP1 Deliverables in the reporting period
Del. no. Deliverable name WP
no. Nature
Lead beneficiary #
Estimated indicative person months
Diss. level
Delivery Date (orig.)
Delivery Date (updated)
Date Delivered
D1.2 2nd Periodic report 1 Report 9 PU T+37 T+37 T+39
CO= confidential, PU= public
WP1 Milestones in the reporting period Milestone number Milestone name
Lead beneficiary #
Due date Slip since last report
Date Delivered
MS3 Second periodic Report 1/9 T+37 2 T+39
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WP2 SKA design
1.1 Objectives of WP2
WP2 is the main SKA design activity; it was aimed at producing a costed top‐level design for the SKA and a detailed system design for Phase 1 of the SKA. This work was undertaken by the SKA Program Development Office based at the University of Manchester, together with the organisations and institutes participating in WP2. WP2 is divided in 7 subtasks and the progress within each of these subtasks during the period 1 April 2011 to 31 March 2012 (T+37 to T+48 months) is presented in this report.
1.2 Overview
During the second reporting period WP2 was restructured to reflect the system engineering approach adopted within the project. This restructuring resulted in a consolidation and reorganisation of the subtasks and the activities within each of them. Milestones and deliverables were also changed to reflect the focus on design reviews to be conducted within each of the subtasks.
The table below summarise the Concept Design Review (CoDR) and (Sub)System Requirements Review (SRR) dates that were planned at the start of the restructured WP2 as reported in the previous periodic report.
Milestone
no.
Deliverable
No.
Milestone name Original Delivery
date
Revised delivery date
WP2.1 SKA System
MS7 System Concept Design review (CoDR) T+22 T+22 (Feb 2010) D2.1 System CoDR Report T+23 T+23 (Mar 2010)
MS7 System delta Concept Design review (CoDR) None T+34 (Feb 2011) (23 ‐ 25 Feb 2011)
D2.1 System delta CoDR Report None T+35 (Mar 2011) MS8 System Requirements review (SRR) T+36 T+43 (Feb 2012)
D2.2 System SRR Report T+37 T+46 (Mar 2012) MS9 System Preliminary Design T+45 T+57 (Jan 2013)
D2.3 System Preliminary Design Report T+45 T+58 (Feb 2013)
WP2.2 Dish Verification Programme
MS35 Dish and Dish Array CoDR T+26 T+39 (Jul 2011) (13 - 15 July 2011)
D2.4 Dish and Dish Array CoDR Report T+27 T+40 (Aug 2011) MS36 Dish and Dish Array SRR T+36 T+59 (Mar 2013)
D2.5 Dish and Dish Array SRR Report T+36 T+60 (Apr 2013) Final Dish Array PrepSKA Wrap up report None T+48 (Apr 2012)
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WP2.3 Aperture Array Verification Program MS59 Aperture Arrays CoDR T+30 T+36 (Apr 2011)
(19 - 20 April 2011) D2.6 Aperture Array CoDR Report T+31 T+37 (May 2011)
MS60 Aperture Array SRR T+45 T+49 (May 2012) D2.7 Aperture Array SRR Report T+46 T+50 (Jun 2012) Final Aperture Array PrepSKA Wrap up report None T+48 (Apr 2012)
WP2.4 Signal Transport and Networks MS73 Signal Transport & Networks CoDR T+26 T+39 (Jul 2011)
(28 - 30 June 2011) D2.8 Signal Transport & Networks CoDR Report T+27 T+40 (Aug 2011)
MS74 Signal Transport & Networks SRR T+42 T+55 (Nov 2012) D2.9 Signal Transport & Networks SRR Report T+43 T+56 (Dec 2012)
MS75 D2.10 Final STaN PrepSKA wrap up Report T+48 T+48 (Apr 2012) WP2.5 Digital Signal Processing
MS90 Digital Signal Processing CoDR T+26 T+36 (Apr 2011) (14 - 15 April 2011)
D2.11 Digital Signal Processing CoDR Report T+27 T+37 (May 2011) MS91 D2.12 Final Digital Signal Processing PrepSKA Wrap up
report T+48 T+48 (Apr 2012)
WP2.6 Software and Computing MS104 Software & Computing CoDR T+33 T+42 (Nov 2011)
(12 - 14 October 2011) D2.13 Software & Computing CoDR Report T+34 T+43 (Des 2011)
MS105 D2.14 Final Software & Computing PrepSKA wrap up report
T+48 T+48 (Apr 2012)
WP2.7 WP2 Design Study Management MS128 D2.15 Periodic WP2 progress report 1 T+18 MS129 D2.16 Periodic WP2 progress report 2 T+36 T+36 (Apr 2011) MS130 D2.17 Periodic WP2 progress report 3 T+48 T+48 (Apr 2012)
Annual Project Plans for WP2 tasks T+21, T+33 T+33 (Jan 2011) Key
Milestones and deliverables which have slipped beyond the WP2 PrepSKA timeframe. Preliminary documentation has been submitted as evidence of the work in this area.
Deliverables that have been added to wrap up the domain for WP2
During the execution of the WP2 programme, it became clear that some of the planned reviews would inevitably slip beyond the PrepSKA timeframe. The next table shows the actual reviews and deliverables that were achieved during the PrepSKA WP2 timeframe.
Milestone no.
Deliverable No.
Milestone name Original Delivery
date
Revised delivery date
WP2.1 SKA System
MS7 System Concept Design review (CoDR) T+22 T+22 (Feb 2010) D2.1 System CoDR Report T+23 T+23 (Mar 2010)
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MS7 System delta Concept Design review (CoDR) None T+34 (Feb 2011) (23 -25 Feb 2011)
D2.1 System delta CoDR Report None T+35 (Mar 2011) Monitor and Control CoDR None T+43 (Nov 2011)
(8-9 Nov 2011) Final System PrepSKA Wrap up report None T+48 (Apr 2012)
WP2.2 Dish Verification Programme MS35 Dish and Dish Array CoDR T+26 T+39 (Jul 2011)
(13-15 July 2011) D2.4 Dish and Dish Array CoDR Report T+27 T+43 (Nov 2011) Final Dish Array PrepSKA Wrap up report None T+48 (Apr 2012)
WP2.3 Aperture Array Verification Program MS59 Aperture Arrays CoDR T+30 T+36 (Apr 2011)
(19-20 Apr 2011) D2.6 Aperture Array CoDR Report T+31 T+37 (May 2011) Aperture Array Mid dCoDR None T+43 (Nov 2011)
(23 -25 Nov 2011) Final Aperture Array PrepSKA Wrap up report None T+48 (Apr 2012)
WP2.4 Signal Transport and Networks MS73 Signal Transport & Networks CoDR T+26 T+39 (Jul 2011)
(28-30 Jun 2011) D2.8 Signal Transport & Networks CoDR Report T+27 T+43 (Nov 2011)
MS75 D2.10 Final STaN PrepSKA wrap up Report T+48 T+48 (Apr 2012) WP2.5 Digital Signal Processing
MS90 Digital Signal Processing CoDR T+26 T+36 (Apr 2011) (14-15 Apr 2011)
D2.11 Digital Signal Processing CoDR Report T+27 T+37 (May 2011) MS91 D2.12 Final Digital Signal Processing PrepSKA Wrap up
report T+48 T+48 (Apr 2012)
WP2.6 Software and Computing MS104 Software & Computing CoDR T+33 T+46 (Feb 2012)
(15-16 Feb 2012) D2.13 Software & Computing CoDR Report T+34 T+47 (Mar 2012)
MS105 D2.14 Final Software & Computing PrepSKA wrap up report
T+48 T+48 (Apr 2012)
WP2.7 WP2 Design Study Management MS128 D2.15 Periodic WP2 progress report 1 T+18 MS129 D2.16 Periodic WP2 progress report 2 T+36 T+36 (Apr 2011) MS130 D2.17 Periodic WP2 progress report 3 T+48 T+48 (Apr 2012)
Annual Project Plans for WP2 tasks T+21, T+33 T+33 (Jan 2011)
Although none of the planned SRRs took place during the PrepSKA timeframe, preliminary Requirements documentation was produced, and has been submitted as the deliverables most appropriate to the eventual requirements review, and as evidence of the work carried out in this area. The project also managed to achieve some additional CoDRs that were not originally envisaged. These included the Monitor and Control CoDR and the Mid Frequency Aperture Array delta CoDR.
More detail on the progress within each of the subtasks of the restructured WP2 is covered in the paragraphs below.
35
1.3 WP2.1 System
1.3.1 Objectives
This subtask represents the engineering work to be done to define and design the SKA as a complete system. System engineering processes and procedures are also being developed as part of this subtask with the aim to roll out and adopt these processes across all level s of the project.
1.3.2 Participants
Work package number WP2.1 Start date or starting event T+0 months Work package title SKA system Activity Type SUPP Participant id 4 7 9 10 11 12 13 Person-months per beneficiary 6 (38) (12) 8 (+24) (6) (26) (12) Person months delivered Participant id 14 15 17 ICRAR SPDO 18 Person-months per beneficiary (12) (24) (16) (24) 102 (+66) 6 Person months delivered
1.3.3 WP2.1.1 SKA definition and design
As previously reported, the programme was re‐scoped as a result of the SKA System CoDR concluded during February 2010. The Review Panel recommended a two phase approach, and work started immediately on defining the scope of the first Phase.
A revised strategy and guidelines were published in SKA Memo 125. As a result of these changes the system scope and definition had to be re‐established. This culminated in the system delta CoDR (dCoDR) performed during February 2011. The same review panel members were invited back to participate in the dCoDR and they concluded that the re‐scoping was satisfactory and this milestone had successfully been passed. This achievement set the scene for the performance of the series of CoDR's at the Domain level of the SKA and formed the focus of the activities during 2011 and the first quarter of 2012.
The dCoDR documentation set is available at:
http://www.skatelescope.org/public/2011‐02_System_delta_CoDR_Documents/
Domain Concept Design Reviews were carried out during the latter three quarters of 2011 and the first quarter of 2012. In order, they were:
• Signal Processing. 14 ‐ 15 April 2011, Univ. of Manchester, UK • Aperture Arrays. 19 ‐ 20 April 2011, Schiphol NL • Signal Transport & Networks. 28 ‐ 30 June 2011, Jodrell Bank, UK • Dish Array. 13 ‐ 15 July 2011, Penticton, CA • Monitoring & Control. 8 ‐ 9 November 2011, Pune, IN • AA Mid deltaCoDR. 23 ‐ 24 November 2011, Astron, NL • Software & Computing. 15 ‐ 16 February 2012, Univ. of Manchester UK
Panel reports for all Reviews have been received and responses have been made. In summary:
36
• Panels variously issued cautions regarding Requirements definition – the status of Requirements was, in general barely sufficient to allow the ‘weeding out’ of concepts at this stage. This is however not in scope of these Reviews.
• Comparability of concepts (scope, maturity) – the range of readiness levels and indeed of technical scope, was wide, making intercomparison difficult.
• System level responsibilities – Panels made recommendations of various kinds which were addressed to the System level engineering and management rather than the Domain level.
• More than 50 concepts covered ‐ o Dish designs, Aperture Array Elements, Cryo‐coolers, Feeds, Receivers, Digitisers,
Beamformers, Signal & Data transport technologies , Synchronisation & Timing technologies, non‐imaging computing, correlators, etc
• Cost information patchy – The cost data provided varied widely, insufficient for cost comparisons to be carried out comprehensively.
Notwithstanding these Panel inputs, the Project now has a pool of concepts for all high risk elements of the SKA as currently envisioned.
The topmost User Requirements document, the Design Reference Mission (DRM) continued development throughout the reporting period. As of March 2012, version 2 was being finalised for baselining following an extensive community wide review ending in December 2011. Baselining is expected in May 2012, whereupon requirements analysis, extraction and allocation work will commence in earnest.
The requirements capture and analysis framework is under development, with a detailed document tree and templates/contents for each item being produced. The elaboration of the System Engineering approach, including these items and more besides, will be incorporated in a series of updates to the System Engineering Management Plan.
Tools are expected to be vitally necessary, especially in the system engineering domain; therefore during the reporting period, a candidate requirements database tool (JAMA Contour) was identified, procured and evaluation was initiated. This work is ongoing.
1.3.4 WP2.1.2 SKA Life Cycles studies and analysis
Work within this activity has continued. An internal document, addressing the availability requirements for the SKA, has been developed. This document was an outflow of the work that has been done in support of the site selection process. The product of this work is a series of sections in the topmost Operations document, the Concept of Operations, in preparation.
1.3.5 WP2.1.3 SKA Science Operations
During the delta system review documents regarding science operations were presented. However, these documents are only first drafts of the concepts and will be developed further during the next phase of the project. The product of this work is a series of sections in the topmost Operations document, the Concept of Operations, in preparation.
1.3.6 WP2.1.4 SKA Support operations
Progress within this activity has been made and a concept for support operations has been developed and included in the site selection documentation. This work will be continued during the
37
next phase of the project. The product of this work is a series of sections in the topmost Operations document, the Concept of Operations, in preparation.
1.3.7 WP2.1.5 SKA monitoring and control
During 2010 the lead for this activity was transferred to the Indian institute, NCRA‐TIFR and their industrial partner TCS. NCRA‐TIFR has committed considerable resources to this task and the emphasis for the remainder of the PrepSKA period was to engage with the wider community in the development of the requirements of the SKA monitoring and control system. This work culminated in a Monitoring and Control domain CoDR conducted in November 2011. The CoDR was successful, with a constructive Panel Report whose contents provide useful guidance for the next phase.
1.3.8 WP2.1.6 SKA electromagnetic compatibility
A strategy and philosophy with regards to the self‐generated interference part of this activity has been developed and presented during the system CoDR's. In particular, it was found to be self‐evident that a suite of measures and procedures will be required and be enforced to prevent the very sensitive receptors picking up interference emanating from installations and electronics at the sites. For that reason draft guidelines and specifications are being developed and published by the SPDO, which must be adhered to for equipment developed for the SKA, and for adapting commercial equipment that will be used at the site. The last category of interference hazards is particularly critical, as it requires close interaction with partners from industry. The prevention of excessive interference from power installations and reticulation has been recognized as a critical element in this respect. Equipment of any kind that has not undergone successful interference compatibility testing at a certified test facility will not be allowed at the sites. This work will be taken further during the next phase of the project. Good progress with regards to the RFI mitigation within the system has been made and is continuing. This work is being led by OBSPAR and UORL.
1.3.9 WP2.1.7 SKA cost analysis
A Costing strategy and a short 'How To' manual have been developed and published as part of the system dCoDR. These documents form the basis of the cost collection and development within the SKA. Costing information was collected during the Element CoDRs. The costing information was assessed to be at BECL 5. The cost coverage for the estimates presented at the CoDRs was also assessed for completeness. As the project moves forward the costing will be refined and the cost coverage increased. This information has been rolled up and consolidated at system level as part of an ongoing process. Apart from that information, cost data will also be obtained during the site selection process. The aim is to integrate all the costing, in accordance with the Costing Strategy, to provide a comprehensive view of the cost of the SKA.
1.3.10 WP2.1.8 SKA power consumption
During the reporting period there have been two major pieces of work carried out which make a significant contribution to the power consumption area of SKA development.
1. The first of these is the development of the Request for Information documentation and model for the purposes of site selection. In order to enable the two proponent countries to show the benefits of their own site, it was decided that a generic model of the SKA should be used which would enable direct comparison between the two submissions. In the process of putting together this model, some preliminary power estimates have been made which were then responded to by the sites themselves. The site selection documentation is currently embargoed but it is expected that once the decision has been taken some of the
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information contained within these reports will be made available to the Office of the SKA Organization and the wider SKA community. These reports were supplemented by expert consultants’ reports which reviewed the material from the two sites. This body of information will be extremely valuable to the project in the future.
2. The second area of work is the development of the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) and associated Statements of Work (SoW) for the area of Power for the next year to eighteen months of work in the Preconstruction phase. This work was carried out in the absence of the information described above (given that the site decision was still pending) and hence had to remain site agnostic. The Power Specialist developed this Work Breakdown Structure in close collaboration with the SKA community (excluding representation from either of the site proponents) in order to outline the work that will be required in developing the power requirements for the SKA and hence the resultant requirements on the various subsystems of the SKA.
1.3.11 Deliverables and milestones
The tables below show all those originally within the reporting period. Shaded rows now fall outside the PrepSKA time frame. As noted above, the preliminary documentation leading to each SRR has been delivered to provide evidence of the work carried out in this respect.
DELIVERABLES
Del. no. Deliverable name WP
no. Nature Lead
beneficiary #
Estimated indicative
person months
Diss. level
Delivery Date
(orig.)
Delivery Date
(updated)
Date Delivered
D2.1 System Concept Design Review (CoDR) 2.1 Report 9 19.15 PU T+23 T+34 T+35
System delta CoDR 2.1 Report 9 Additional PU None T+34 T+36
Monitoring and Control CoDR report 2.1 Report 9 Additional PU None T+44 T+44
MILESTONES
Milestone number Milestone name
Lead beneficiary
# Due date Slip since last
report Date Delivered
MS7 System Concept Design Review (CoDR) 9 T+22 0 T+34
MS7a System delta CoDR 9 None 0 T+36
MS7b Monitoring and Control CoDR 9 None 0 T+44
MS8 System Requirements Review (SRR) 9 T+62 16 ‐
1.4 WP 2.2 Dish Verification Program
1.4.1 Objectives
To design, construct and evaluate at least one cost‐efficient dish prototype funded and produced by PrepSKA‐participating organisations and institutes, using manufacturing technologies having potential application to the SKA. In the context of the SKA system design, to provide a detailed analysis of the antenna in terms of performance metrics, cost‐performance trade‐offs and flexibility attributes.
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1.4.2 Participants
Work package number WP2.2 Start date or starting event T+9 months Work package title Dish Verification Program Activity Type SUPP Participant id 4 7 8 9 10 12 13 Person-months per beneficiary 2 (16) (14) (6) (2) (96) (6) Person months delivered Participant id 14 15 NRAO 19 KASI SPDO 21 Person-months per beneficiary (6) (44) (24) (8) (5) 70 (18) Person months delivered
1.4.3 Progress
Overall progress on the dish array:
• Progress is being made on requirements for dishes, feeds and receivers, but further refinement will be necessary in the next stage of work.
o Five dish designs or variants of designs have been put forward as concepts for the SKA Dish Array (two from the JLRAT collaboration in China, one from South Africa, one from the DRAO/TDP collaboration, and one from the ASTRON/Airborne collaboration. Three are specifically designed to meet SKA dish requirements.
• A prototype SKA dish (Dish Verification Antenna – DVA1) from the DRAO/TDP is under construction. Although there may be a need to construct differently designed prototypes in the future, this design is a solid start at meeting SKA requirements. If the design is finally adopted, it will be the first in a short series of prototypes converging on a production model.
• Progress has been made on testing the DVA1 dish, although tests cannot be executed until the prototype is available. These tests will be an evaluation baseline for any additional dish prototypes.
• Dish system performance simulations (dish+feed+LNA) have been carried out, utilizing a variety of feeds on the DVA1 design, including a number of different wide‐band feeds (Wide Band Single Pixel Feeds).
• Preliminary work to evaluate the performance of Phased Array Feeds on the DVA1 design has also been done. DVA1 has been designed with volume and weight place‐holders for PAFs. A preliminary analysis of the off‐axis beam performance of the dish has shown that good beam‐shape is maintained off axis.
• Design and pattern measurements have been carried out on most of the following WBSPF designs: Eleven Feed, QSC feed, ATA feed, Inverted Sinuous feed, Lindgren feed, the Log‐Periodic‐Log‐Spiral feed and the Quad Ridge feed. In less promising cases only electromagnetic modeling was done.
• An extensive study of the performance of the Eleven Feed has been carried out by the Onsala/ Chalmers collaboration. This was partly funded by PrepSKA, and the group has delivered a series of reports, including a final one.
• A collaboration (PAFSKA) specifically for the development of Phased Array Feeds (PAFs) for dishes has been carrying out R&D on PAFs. They have developed and tested several prototypes. At CSIRO and ASTRON they have developed production‐level designs for use on the ASKAP and the WSRT telescopes, respectively.
• A comprehensive study of options for cryogenic cooling of receivers and single pixel feeds for the Dish Array was carried out by Callisto Limited of France.
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• PrepSKA funds were used to provide support for the DVA1 dish construction, the study of the Eleven Feed, and cryo‐cooling study (noted in the previous item). The cryo‐cooling study was commissioned by the SPDO and entirely paid for with PrepSKA funds.
• The SPDO has made numerous dish‐array presentations to industry meetings, the SKA2011 event in Banff, and other meetings.
• A work breakdown structure for the dish array has been developed, so that further work in the Definition phase of the dish‐array can proceed in an organized fashion. In addition, aspects of system performance that are coupled with the dish design have been covered in the work breakdown structure at the system level.
• 1.4.3.1 Major Reports and Expenditures
1. The Onsala Space Observatory of Chalmers University of Technology has completed the following study: “Eleven Feed project: development of broadband cryogenic frontend prototype for the SKA”. The study was supported through the University of Manchester by a 50k Euro contribution from PrepSKA funds. Their report is appended (Appendix A).
2. Callisto Limited of France has completed the following study: “Investigation and report on design approaches for cryogenically cooled front ends for the SKA Dish Array”. The University of Manchester paid 25k GBP for this work on behalf of PrepSKA. Their report is appended (Appendix B).
3. Minex Engineering Corp of California is supplying mechanical components for the DVA1 prototype SKA dish. The components will form a major part of the antenna mount, an antenna sub‐system, whose main function is for support and motion control of the antenna. They will be integrated into a functioning, tested antenna mount at the Minex facility. Through support from the US TDP program, Minex has been intimately involved in the overall design of the antenna, and is responsible for the design of the antenna mount. This work is due for final acceptance by NRC/DRAO in July 2012, as part of the overall DVA1 program. The University of Manchester has issued a purchase order for 200k Euro for this work on behalf of PrepSKA. The total cost of the DVA1 construction project is approximately $C2.5M. The National Research Council of Canada has committed to carry this project through to completion, using the expert personnel at DRAO to carry out the work, and will take responsibility for accepting and integrating the components produced by Minex into the DVA1 system. The report on the antenna mount is appended (Appendix C).
1.4.3.2 Management
The SPDO has managed or has taken part in some aspects of management of all of the activities noted above, except for the PAFSKA collaboration, which is being coordinated entirely by CSIRO.
Neil Roddis, the SPDO Domain Specialist, for the Dish Array left the SPDO in Sept. 2011. Peter Dewdney, SKA Project Engineer, has been filling in until a replacement can be found. Regular telecon meetings have been curtailed to one per week.
In mid‐2011 the US National Science Foundation declined to provide the final tranche of funding for the TDP program. The TDP group has managed to carry on with remaining funds. The scope of activities was reduced to supporting the DVA1 project with project management, project engineering support, and some technical support. Funds for this support will be exhausted in June 2012, after the DVA1 CDR takes place. In the meantime the NRC/DRAO group has raised sufficient funds to complete the construction of DVA1 at the DRAO site. (PrepSKA has contributed about 10% of the total cost). The DRAO group also plans to carry out a testing program, although this is not fully funded at present.
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1.4.3.3 System Engineering
The principal PrepSKA system engineering activities have been:
• Defining and refining the requirements for the dish array, in particular draft requirements for the design of DVA1.
• Providing regular feedback on the dish‐array technical development efforts among the PrepSKA contributors.
• Organising and carrying out an SKA Dish Array Concept Design Review (CoDR), held July 13‐15 2011 in Penticton, Canada. The dish array element has now successfully moved through this milestone, from the Concept stage to the Definition stage.
• The SPDO and collaborators have assembled a work breakdown structure and statements of work for the on‐going development of the SKA dish array through the Definition stage to the System Requirements Review (SRR).
• Critical aspects of dish design and system design for the SKA are tightly coupled, and will require a combination of performance simulation and dish prototype testing to make final design decisions at both system and dish‐array levels. This work has been incorporated into the statements of work both at the system level and the dish array levels.
1.4.3.4 Project Management
The SPDO has contributed to project management of the wrap‐up of the TDP project and the DVA1 project, to a very minor extent, overseen the commissioned work on the Eleven feed and the cryo‐cooled receivers.
1.4.4 WP2.2.1 Antenna Design
There are a number of dish developments under way.
1. NRC/DRAO and the US TDP group have been working for several years on the concept of an offset Gregorian 15‐m dish antenna with composite reflectors, aimed specifically at SKA requirements. This is now the DVA1 antenna.
They have now settled on optical/mechanical concepts, and are proceeding through detailed design and construction. A successful CoDR for DVA1 (not the same as the SKA Dish Array CoDR, which was more general) was conducted in February 2011. A successful PDR was also held Oct 4, 2011, and a CDR is scheduled for June 28, 2012.
DVA1 will be built and tested at the DRAO site near Penticton, Canada. The original plan was to build and test this antenna at the VLA site in New Mexico, USA, so that the well‐characterized, sensitive array there could be used for some of the “deep testing” needed to qualify the design completely for the SKA. However, as a result of the withdrawal of the funding for the TDP, this became too difficult to organize. Nevertheless, a significant test program is being assembled for the site in Penticton, which will result in a quite well characterized antenna. A later version of the antenna may still be tested at the VLA site at a later date.
2. NAOC is coordinating work on SKA dishes in China, via its JLRAT consortium. In addition to developing a 15 m offset Gregorian concept, they are also working on an axisymmetric option. In both these options they are considering a traditional metal panelled approach, as well as a novel composite construction. The JLRAT group provided concept‐level documentation and made presentations at the Dish Array CoDR in July, 2011.
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3. The MeerKAT group in South Africa has been working on the optimization of their dish design. It is also an offset Gregorian optics design, but significantly different from the DVA1 design. Its feed is on the low side, and its diameter is 13.5 m. A Request for Proposals, based on this concept, has been issued in South Africa to construct one antenna, and after evaluation of the first one, 63 more antennas. The MeerKAT group provided concept‐level documentation and made presentations at the Dish Array CoDR.
4. The ASTRON‐Airborne consortium is working on a construction approach, based on moulded composite panels. These would be assembled in the field on a frame, and constructed in place. They also provided concept‐level documentation and made presentations at the Dish Array CoDR, based on an axi‐symmetric dish concept. Their basic composite panel approach can be adapted for either offset or axisymmetric designs.
1.4.5 WP 2.2.2 Wide band single pixel feeds
Two groups have contributed to the development of WBSPFs, which are one of the SKA technologies contained with the SKA Advanced Instrumentation Programme (AIP). The first is the US TDP group, which investigated several different feed/LNA combinations. At CalTech they have characterized the Lindgren and the Quad Ridge feeds. At Cornell they have done the same thing with the QSC feed. In both cases these feeds were constructed and measured in anechoic chambers or on dishes. The ATA feed has been measured on the ATA dishes at the University of California at Berkeley. The Log‐Periodic‐Log‐Spiral feed was tested at the National Research Council of Canada.
The results of these investigations were used to provide simulations of dish performance, using these feeds. These results were reported in documents submitted for the Dish Array CoDR, and in presentations at the CoDR review.
Similar testing was done on the Eleven feed at Caltech, but the majority of effort was centred at the Onsala Space Observatory and Chalmers University, where they have carried out an extensive programme of innovation and testing of Eleven feeds variants. They have developed a circular version of the Eleven feed which has quite good performance over a 3.5:1 bandwidth ratio, and has a simpler feeding structure than the original design. They have also measured the system temperature performance of a cryogenically cooled version of this feed and developed a noise model that allows them to predict Ae/Tsys performance. Spectral baselines have also been improved. Although follow‐on work on these feeds will be required, progress on the fundamental performance drivers is evident.
In general the wide band feeds are approaching competitiveness with the A/T performance octave band feeds at the lower end of the dish band. In the future they may indeed reduce the need for such a large suite of octave band feeds on the SKA dishes.
1.4.6 WP 2.2.2.1 Feeds
The US TDP group has developed and simulated the antenna feed combination for optimized corrugated horn feeds for DVA1. Although these feeds can achieve at most 2:1 bandwidth, they are the highest performing feeds at present in terms of providing best Ae/Tsys. Coupled with cryo‐cooled receivers, the DVA1 dishes are expected to achieve 7 m2/K. If the related efficiency and noise contributions can be verified in practice, then this combination stands as a reference design, provided that cost is sufficiently low.
1.4.7 WP 2.2.2.2 LNAs
The US TDP has coordinated work on LNAs for single pixel feeds. Various designs have been produced and evaluated; these include differential and single‐ended LNAs based on various HEMTs
43
and HBTs. The SPDO has identified a potential industrial partner that could carry out high precision automated manufacture of LNAs for the SKA. The status of LNA development has not changed significantly over the past year. Documentation of the TDP work is expected to be available when the TDP wrap‐up is completed.
1.4.8 WP 2.2.2.3 Receivers
No resources have been available to carry out development work on single pixel feed receivers. The SPDO has produced a partial set of requirements for the receivers. There are many alternative receiver designs available, and further work will be needed to decide which are the best ones. A potentially important new development is a means of producing well separated, stable, calibrated polarization channels, using digital signal processing. Progress in this area has been made mainly by NRAO in the US. Although this work is not connected to the SKA directly, these technology developments could greatly benefit SKA receiver design.
1.4.9 WP 2.2.2.4 Cryogenics
Because system noise is such an incredibly important cost and performance driver for dishes, cryo‐cooling of feeds and receivers is potentially a critical technology. This is particularly true if the other important source of noise, spillover, can be minimized. Feed/OMT losses would then become the dominant source of noise. It is important to recognize that cooling just the LNA, without also cooling the potentially lossy interface to the feed, is not sufficient. Thus an integrated system design approach is needed to the feed‐LNA‐cryogenics assembly. But more work is needed on the technology development side before integrated designs can be taken to a prototyping stage.
Preliminary cryogenic development work was carried out by the US TDP, especially evaluating mass produced Stirling cycle cryo‐coolers. Actual deployment of Stirling‐cooled front ends has been done on the ATA receivers, but this application is very specific to the ATA feeds and cannot easily be transferred to other feed designs.
Because of the importance of cryo‐cooled receivers, the SPDO commissioned a study of engineering concepts and approaches. This was carried out by Callisto Limited. In addition to a survey of available technology, the study provided performance/cost modelling of cryo‐cooling, taking into account entire life‐cycle costs. Although the analysis requires assumptions to be made, it supports the conclusion that cryo‐cooled receivers are cost effective even if they are complex. New, proprietary approaches to cyro‐cooled receiver design have been noted, and these could make very large improvements in the capital and maintenance costs of radio astronomy receivers, especially where large numbers of receivers are required.
There remains the possibility that sufficiently low noise LNAs can be developed, so that cryogenic approaches are not needed. This will require achieving “room temperature” receiver noise in the sub‐10K range, over at least a 2:1 bandwidth. This level of performance has been approached at lower frequencies in a laboratory setting, but not in an integrated feed setting. One of the major issues is loss in the interface (balun, OMT, etc.), which is typically at least 0.2 dB, equivalent to a 14 K noise contribution. Thus room temperature LNAs are not the only part of the overall solution. As a result of the reduction in TPD funding, work on room temperature LNAs for single pixel feeds is no longer being pursued.
1.4.10 WP 2.2.3 Phased Array Feeds
CSIRO is coordinating the work on phased array feeds (PAFs) and has set up the PAFSKA group to collaborate on design. This group includes ASTRON, NRC/DRAO, NRAO and Brigham Young
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University (BYU). Prototype PAFs have been successfully demonstrated by ASTRON, CSIRO, BYU and NRC/DRAO.
PAFs are part of the SKA AIP program, along with AA‐mid and WBSPFs.
The PAFSKA group, led by CSIRO, produced a full set of documents for the Dish Array CoDR, including a full set of requirements (http://wiki.skatelescope.org/bin/view/DishArray/DishArrayCoDR).
The PAFSKA group held a major meeting at Brigham‐Young University in May 2011. Discussions of all of the major design drivers and priority issues took place: impacts on dish design, frequency band definition, bandwidths, polarization purity, calibration and system design were explored.
Good progress is being made on the development of the ASKAP PAFs. CSIRO has now developed a second generation PAF system for ASKAP, which is lighter than and half the cost of the first generation model.
1.4.11 Deliverables and milestones
The tables below show how those originally within the reporting period.
Deliverables Del. no. Deliverable name WP
no. Nature Lead
beneficiary #
Estimated indicative
person months
Diss. level
Delivery Date
(orig.)
Delivery Date
(updated)
Date Delivered
D2.4 Dish Array CoDR Report 2.2 Report 9 15.96 PU T+26 T+39 T+39
Final Dish Array PrepSKA Wrap up report 2.2 Report 9 Additional PU None T+48 T+48
Milestones
Milestone number Milestone name
Lead beneficiary
# Due date Slip since last
report Date Achieved
MS35 Dish Array CoDR 9 T+39 0 T+39
1.5 WP2.3 Aperture Array
1.5.1 Objectives
The objective of this work package is to design, construct and evaluate at least one cost‐efficient aperture array (AA) prototype funded and produced by PrepSKA participating organisations and institutes, using manufacturing technologies having potential application to the SKA. In the context of the SKA system design the work package will provide a detailed analysis of the array in terms of performance metrics, cost‐performance trade‐offs and flexibility attributes, including the use of results from simulations and other existing arrays to predict the performance of SKA‐scale stations.
This work package is tasked with developing the aperture array system for the SKA, consisting of at least a sparse low frequency (70 to ‐450MHz) and dense mid‐frequency (400‐1400MHz) array. Since the adoption of the SKA Phase 1 design in April 2008 this work package has raised the emphasis on the low frequency, sparse array while maintaining the effort on the mid‐frequency dense array. It is planned to make the arrays technologically as compatible as possible for efficiency.
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1.5.2 Participants
Work package number WP2.3 Start date or starting event T+ 24 months Work package title Aperture Array Verification Program Activity Type SUPP Participant id 4 9 10 13 14 17 21 Person-months per beneficiary 4 (48) 20 (+20) (48) (48) 24 (+46) (12) Person months delivered Participant id ICRAR 11 Person months per beneficiary (126) (8) Person-months delivered
1.5.3 Progress 1.5.3.1 Management
The Aperture Array CoDR was held on 19‐20 April 2011. Prior to the review the documents were written and of particular importance in the management section is a “strategy to proceed to the next phase”. Overall the review was passed. One of the recommendations from the panel was to more clearly split the work for AA‐low and AA‐mid. Furthermore, the panel recommended holding a specific AA‐mid CoDR further review. This was held and passed on 23 November 2011.
Before the end of the reporting period, the Statements of Work for the first Stage in the Pre‐construction Phase were written and aligned with the overall Work Breakdown Structure.
The documentation can be found on the wiki page
Eg: http://wiki.skatelescope.org/bin/view/ApertureArrays/AACoDR#Documentation_Set
1.5.3.2 System Engineering
For both the AA CoDR and AA delta CoDR the system engineering principles adopted by the SKA Project were used. For example, AA requirements were derived from the SKA system requirements whenever possible. Furthermore, the overall SKA review process was adopted and followed.
1.5.3.3 General
A workshop focusing on AA‐low was held in Perth from 6‐9 September 2011. The workshop had more than 80 attendees. Among the issues discussed between the scientists and engineers were the requirements specific to the AA‐low, technical sub‐systems progress and pathfinder updates. (website: http://www.icrar.org/news/pastevents/SKA‐Low)
From 12 to 16 December 2011 a further workshop was held in Dwingeloo. This workshop was titled “Taking the AA programme into SKA Pre‐Construction” and had 74 registered attendees. The workshop started with a number of splinter sessions focusing on technical and science aspects. The workshop covered both AA‐low and AA‐mid technologies. The plenary sessions covered the science, system architectural aspects, industrialization, more detailed sub‐system talks and finally the greenery aspects of Aperture Arrays.
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1.5.4 WP2.3.1: Wide Field of View Aperture Array Tiles
The aim is to produce a readily manufacturable system which has the minimum number of elements consistent with required sensitivity, frequency range and beam performance. This task is sub‐divided in four sub‐tasks.
1.5.5 WP2.3.1.1: SKA Aperture Array Low Single-Element Design
Work on a single element has been done at Curtin on helical spirals, independent Vivaldis in Italy and at Cambridge for the log‐periodic antenna as depicted below.
The log‐periodic antenna element has been improved for production by using as little material as possible. From both the Vivaldi and log‐periodic antenna a small array of 16 elements has been built as is shown below for the optimized log‐periodic antennas. Array simulations have been done to determine the performance in various configurations.
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1.5.6 WP2.3.1.2: SKA Aperture Array Low Dual-Element Design
Since it is hard to optimize the configuration of single elements for a large bandwidth from 70‐450 MHz an alternative route has been analysed. This resulted in a SKA memo titled “Cost‐effective aperture arrays for SKA Phase 1: single or dual?”. In this document the system impact of both architectures is analysed and costed. The antenna elements required for the dual‐element design can be derived from the single‐element designs by scaling them to the appropriate frequency range.
1.5.7 WP2.3.1.3: Dense Aperture Array Design
There are two alternative antenna technologies being developed by two groups:
a) A Vivaldi based design is primarily being done at ASTRON with input from other groups, in particularly the Nancay group. This is a relatively secure design in that the antenna technology is well understood and is capable of being fed by a single‐ended LNA. This technology is used in the EMBRACE demonstrator. The EMBRACE system is installed in Westerbork and Nancay.
b) A planar system based on Octagon Ring Antennas, ORA, is being developed at Manchester University. In principle these should have very good performance and be easier to manufacture than the vertical Vivaldi style, however, more development work needs to be done and in particular the integration of the antenna with a differential amplifier or balun.
The EMBRACE demonstrator has been extended with its own experimental control system, such that there is a tight coupling with Matlab. By using this control a number of experiments have been executed. One of the key points to demonstrate is the stability of the beam pointing. In the figure below it is shown that the pulsar B0329+54 can be followed for 9 hours (from an elevation of 50 degrees, through transit, and then back down to 50 degrees elevation). The array was calibrated only once before the start of the observation, using GPS satellites to determine the phase calibration coefficients necessary to phase the array into a single beam on the sky. The successful tracking of such a weak astronomical signal places high demands on the re‐pointing precision of the beam and the dynamical behaviour of the EMBRACE array.
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Furthermore a lot of effort has been put into calibrating the individual tiles by using GPS satellites as is shown in the figure below. The differences are converged in two iterations.
Complimentary to the work on EMBRACE, a development effort towards a next generation tile has started from both mechanical and technical perspectives.
1.5.8 WP2.3.1.4: AAVP Integrated Front-end
Front‐end integration of Low Noise Amplifiers has been progressed for AA‐mid in Gallium Arsenide, the ‘traditional’ low noise technology and in Silicon Germanium, a lower cost technology. Gallium Arsenide designs have been produced in a Triquint process and in a WIN process. The first results and a microphotograph of one of the Triquint LNAs are given below. The WIN (Taiwanese foundry) designs are in production.
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The chip layout of one of the Silicon Germanium LNAs, designed by ObsPARIS, Nancay, is given in the following figure. Furthermore this team continued work on the beamformer integrated circuits. Two approaches have been chosen, 1) A low power version of phase control concept also used for EMBRACE, 2) A novel time delay concept. The time delay beam former chip will eliminate beam squint and therefore improve the instantaneous bandwidth of the phased array system.
1.5.9 WP2.3.2: Aperture Array Signal Processing
The signal processing for the Aperture Array systems depends heavily on the AA station architecture. Currently four concepts have been identified:
1. Analogue to Digital Conversion (ADC) centrally (consequently also the digital processing centrally)
2. ADC close to the antenna elements and digital processing centrally 3. ADC and a digital tile beamformer close to the antenna elements and the rest of the digital
processing centrally 4. ADC and an analogue tile beamformer close to the antenna and all digital processing
centrally Also in‐between concepts have been investigated. The ultimate choice depends heavily on how mature the technologies are and their cost. For example, RF over fibre technology for connecting the
50
analogue signals over a relative large distance is promising and avoids the need to use ADCs near the sensitive antennas.
For the signal processing, the effects of hierarchical beamforming has been studied and various designs have been suggested. Especially for the AAVS demonstrators concrete hardware implementations have been studied. Amongst them are Roach boards and UniBoards.
1.5.10 The Verification Programme
The money allocated to the verification programme in WP2 is redirected to two areas of work, which is detailed below.
1.5.10.1 AAVP
A project manager working from Cambridge but employed by the Rutherford Appleton Labs (RAL), Derek MacKay, has been working for AAVP in this reporting period. He mainly worked on an AAVP test verification strategy. This serves as a preparation for the creation of test verification plans, which define the requirements to be verified by the AAVS demonstrators.
A verification scientist has been taken on at ASTRON, Ilse van Bemmel. She wrote a system definition for AAVS2 for the AA‐mid technology, including the science and technical motivation. By participating in several science discussions and SKA meetings she has been busy clarifying and motivating the requirements set for both SKA1 and SKA2.
Also an AA‐mid science verification plan has been written. This is complementary with the EMBRACE verification plan, which summarizes the tests done with EMBRACE and the potential tests which should be executed to prove its value for the science cases requiring a large Field Of View in the 400‐1400 MHz frequency range.
1.5.10.2 AAVS Verification Scientist, VS, report
The AAVS Verification Scientist commenced her duties in March 2011. Initial work has focused on building up of knowledge about the AA technology and science drivers for the SKA, and she has learned about the management structure of the AAVP and SKA. She attended the preparatory meetings for the CoDR, and participated in the CoDR on April 20th for the scientific presentation. For both AA‐mid and AA‐low she has been deeply involved in discussing verification tests, system design and the science‐technology trade‐offs. Verification plans have been set up for both aspects. In the overall AAVP management the VS attended the AAVP management meetings, and she was part of the SOC and LOC of the last AAVP meeting in ASTRON, Dwingeloo. On the SKA level she was actively involved in the drafting of the WBS and SOW.
The VS is now a core person of the SKA Science Working Group, and as such has been involved in writing the Magnificent Memos which deal with the frequency requirements for AA‐low and AA‐mid.
1.5.11 Deliverables and milestones
The tables below show those deliverables and milestones originally within the reporting period.
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Deliverables Del. no. Deliverable name WP
no. Nature Lead
beneficiary #
Estimated indicative
person months
Diss. level
Delivery Date
(orig.)
Delivery Date
(updated)
Date Delivered
D2.6 CoDR Report for the AAVP 2.3 Report 9 20.21 PU T+31 T+37 T+37
Final Aperture Array PrepSKA Wrap up report 2.3 Report 9 PU None T+48 T+48
Milestones
Milestone number Milestone name
Lead beneficiary
# Due date Slip since last
report Date Achieved
MS59 CoDR for the AAVP 9 T+36 0 T+36
1.6 WP2.4 Signal Transport and Networks (STaN)
1.6.1 Objectives
The WP2.4 programme of work will develop and demonstrate signal transport and timing system solutions that will meet the requirements of the SKA. In the case of new design solutions, this will include the development, production and evaluation of prototype systems. Where existing design solutions can be adopted from Pathfinders or Precursors, a detailed study will be undertaken to establish that these designs are compatible with SKA requirements. Work will be undertaken within the programme in order to collate the information required to formulate and assess tenders for turn‐key solutions.
1.6.2 Participants
Work package number WP2.4 Start date or starting event T+13 months Work package title Signal transport and networks Activity Type SUPP Participant id 4 7 9 10 11 12 13 Person-months per beneficiary 6 (4) (12) (4) (8) (12) (12) Person months delivered Participant id 14 15 21 SPDO Person-months per beneficiary (12) (4) (28) 10 Person months delivered
1.6.3 Progress
1.6.3.1 Management
A CoDR was held in June 2011 at Jodrell Bank Observatory, UK. An external panel reviewed the work that had been generated and recommended that the work proceed to the Element Requirement Review.
The panel wrote a series of recommendation in their report. Many of these recommendations have been taken up and actioned. A response to the panel report has been written and sent to the external reviewers.
A WBS and SoW has been written for the next stage of work under PEP funding. In this WBS STaN has been split into two SKA Elements; Synchronisation and Timing and Signal and data Transport.
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1.6.3.2 System Engineering
The refinement of the description of STaN and how it fits into the SKA system is on‐going. Current thinking was described in the STaN CoDR.
The development of requirements for the STaN domain, derived from a set of top level System requirements is on‐going. This work will be completed by the System Requirements reviews for STaN subsystems.
1.6.3.3 Industrial Liaison Progress
The project was able to see demonstration of the first 100 Gbps systems on the market from Ciena.
A Non‐Disclosure Agreement (NDA) was signed with the Centre for Integrated Photonics, UK; a company specialising in integrating photonic devices on chip.
A Statement of Mutual Interest (SOMI) and NDA was signed with Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN); a company specialising in all aspects of telecommunications networks. This has led to a number of meetings developing the interests of both parties. Privileged information as a result of this work was available to the project (under the restrictions of the NDA) at the STaN CoDR
1.6.4 WP2.4.1: Dish cable systems
1.6.4.1 WP2.4.1.2: STaN for PAF systems:
Work has been undertaken at CSIRO on the test and measurement of RF over fibre links for ASKAP and this work was presented at the STaN CoDR. The ASKAP Advanced Design include RFoF links from the dishes to a central processing facility. The Domain Specialist from the SPDO attended the ASKAP ADE Review as a panel member.
1.6.4.2 WP2.4.1.3: STaN for WBSPF:
Various options for RFoF links were presented at the STaN CoDR, including options for AAs using VCSEL technology and dishes using wide band RFoF systems.
1.6.5 WP2.4.2: Central Facilities Fibre Networks
Work in this area has subsumed, not only the central facilities interconnect, but also the network infrastructure design for the central region and the links between the Correlator and the High Performance Computer (HPC) and the HPC to the wider world.
An infrastructure optimisation tool has been developed in conjunction with The University of Cambridge called TrenchCOAT [described in SKA memo 121]. This has been used to examine connectivity and scale of the optimised networks required for design scenarios given a fixed configuration. It has also been used to examine the impact of the SKA extensibility criteria on the networks infrastructure.
A discussion paper describing the network implications of the long baselines in SKA2 has been published as SKA memo 119.
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The configuration is a very significant factor for infrastructure questions with regard to networks. The configuration work has been placed on hold until after the site selection process has been completed.
1.6.6 WP2.4.3: Digital Data Backhaul (DDBH)
The University of Manchester worked on architectures for custom built boards for the transmission of data from dishes and stations of SKA. This was presented at the STaN CoDR. This architecture centred around a hierarchical beamforming architecture designed in order to reduce bit flow through the signal chain.
IT, Portugal has been working with NSN to look at commercial off the shelf (COTS) solutions for the same function. They have identified the functionality provided by COTS systems so that the SKA can identify those aspects of commercial offering that are essential to the system. These aspects of functionality will be developed into requirements for the SKA STaN system. IT has also conducted modelling work for the various link options for the SKA. This was presented in their report for the STaN CoDR.
1.6.7 WP2.4.4: Local Oscillator and Timing
The University of Manchester have developed a set of functional requirements for the SKA Local Oscillator and Timing system from the top level requirements highlighted in the Design Reference Mission. They have identified number of concepts for delivery of these requirements and this was presented at the STaN CoDR.
1.6.8 Deliverables and milestones
The tables below show how those originally within the reporting period.
Deliverables Del. no. Deliverable name WP
no. Nature Lead
beneficiary #
Estimated indicative
person months
Diss. level
Delivery Date
(orig.)
Delivery Date
(updated)
Date Delivered
D2.8 CoDR report for Signal Transport and Networks 2.4 Report 9 5.47 CO T+27 T+40 T+43
D2.10 Final Signal Transport and Networks Wrap‐up report 2.4 Report 9 5.78 CO T+48 T+48 T+48
Milestones
Milestone number Milestone name
Lead beneficiary
# Due date Slip since last
report Date Delivered
MS73 CoDR for Signal Transport and Networks 9 T+39 0 T+39
MS75 Final Signal Transport and Networks Wrap‐up report 9 T+48 0 T+48
1.7 WP2.5 Signal processing
1.7.1 Objectives
To design and demonstrate the SKA signal processing chain from antenna through to the correlated or time‐detected data.
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1.7.2 Participants
Work package number WP2.5 Start date or starting event T+18 months Work package title Digital Signal Processing Activity Type SUPP Participant id 4 7 8 9 10 11 12 Person-months per beneficiary 8 (10) (28) (24) 8 (+18) 18 (+18) (8) Participant id 13 14 15 16 17 18 KASI Person-months per beneficiary (24) (24) (4) (8) (16) 6 (15) Person months delivered Participant id SPDO Person-months per beneficiary 8 Person months delivered
1.7.3 Progress
1.7.3.1 Management
A detailed work breakdown structure and statements of work have been generated for the Central Signal Processing aspects of the Stage 1 of the Pre‐Construction Phase of SKA1. This involved the participation of interested institutions in the form of face to face meetings at a week long work session in Manchester plus subsequent teleconferences and e‐mail document exchanges.
The resultant documentation and all review comments and their associated responses have been made available on the SKA wiki site.
Regular teleconferences are held for the discussion of technical and management aspects of the Signal Processing domain with all agenda and minutes published in full on the Signal Processing area of the SKA wiki. In light of the CoDR review panel comments, a stronger emphasis on developing aspects associated with Non Imaging processing that affect both the Correlator and Central Beamformer as well as the Non‐Imaging Processor itself.
1.7.3.2 System Engineering
As a result of SP CoDR review panel comments and in support of the system level engineering process, there have been documented discussions with the science community to improve the level of definition within the DRM document particularly within the area of Non Imaging processing. This has been key to the inclusion of the new Astrometry science chapter in the DRM. Agenda and minutes for these discussions and associated technical documentation are posted on the Signal Processing area of the wiki.
As part of the definition of the WBS for stage 1 of the preconstruction phase of SKA1, the scope of the Signal Processing domain has been redefined as Central Signal Processing. The scope includes all signal processing at the Central Processing Facility.
Document types and templates for the hierarchical system engineering aspects of signal processing have been developed for stage 1 of the SKA1 preconstruction phase. These have been used as major inputs to the definition of generic templates across SKA1 elements This is illustrated in the figure below which also shows traceability to the CoDR documentation.
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Figure: Element Level Engineering Documentation
1.7.3.3 General
The CoDR for WP2.5 was successfully held at the University of Manchester in April 2011 (T+36).
All review documentation and presentations are available at the following url:
http://www.skatelescope.org/public/2011‐04_Signal_Processing_CoDR_Documents/
A review panel of six members comprising representatives from both Industry and the Science community was selected to provide a comprehensive expertise within the Signal Processing domain and associated technology. The panel comprised of:
Peter Dewdney SPDO, UK Andre Jongeling JPL, USA Robin Sharpe(chair) External advisor, Ex Philips Semiconductors, Winchester, UK Lou Morales iSine, USA Philip Stanley‐Marbell Research Staff Member, IBM Research Zurich Tim Hankins NRAO, USA
The overall recommendations of the review panel are documented in ‘SKA Signal Processing CoDR Report of the Review Panel’ and concluded the domain was sufficiently mature state to move into the definition phase of the project. The seven key findings and recommendations of the report are summarized below:
bdd [block] system [SRR Element Engineering documentation model]]
«block»Element
Engineering
«block»Tier n
Requirements
«block» CoDR Concepts
«block»System
Traceable to
«block»CoDR High Level
Description
«block»Tier n Costing
tier n-1 refines tier n
«block»Interface
Verification Plan
«block»Technology Roadmap
«block»Tier nADD
«block»Structural
Model
«block»Behavioral
Model
satisfies
«block»Tier n
Physical Model
«block»Tier n
Interface Control Document Set
«block»Tier n
Design Specification
«block»Design
Verification Plan
satisfies
satisfies
0..*
1..*
1..*
update of
functional
non-functional
Legacy CoDR artefact SRR artefact
«block»Tiered
Engineering Documentation
1..6«block»CoDR
EngineeringDocumentation
tier n-1 refines tier n
tier n-1 traceable to tier n
1..*
1..*
1..*
«block»Tier n
Procurement Specification0..*
«block»Acceptance Plan
«block»CoDR Technology
Roadmap
informs
1..*
0..*
«block»Tier n
Specification
1..*
informs
«block»CoDR
RequirementsDocument
«block»CoDR CostDocument
inform
constrains
informs
informs
informs
informs
0..*
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1) The preparation for the review was of a high standard including both the documentation, which was distributed before the meeting, and the presentations given during the review itself.
2) It was clear that the required signal processing concepts and algorithms were mature and in general very well understood.
3) Several alternative architectures are available with realisations of these utilising technologies ranging from software on a general purpose computer or graphics processing unit to FPGA and ASIC implementations.
4) All of the solutions presented appeared to be feasible, although estimates of cost and power consumption showed a large degree of variation.
5) In moving into the next phase it will be urgent to adopt some baselines to allow proper comparisons to be made for the alternative architectures that are available.
6) The requirements for pulsar signal processing appeared to be less well developed and there was much less implementation experience evident. This area will need stronger attention in the next phase to bring it to the same level of maturity as the other areas.
7) Taking into account the preceding comments, the Panel believes the Signal Processing Element is ready to move into the Definition Phase.
The SPDO, to the most part, agreed with all the comments and recommendations of the review panel and documented their response in the SKA Signal Processing CoDR Response to the Review Panel document. Both review panel comments and SPDO response documents are issued and are available at:
http://www.skatelescope.org/public/2011‐04_Signal_Processing_CoDR_Documents/
1.7.3.4 Requirements Capture
All Element level requirements presented at Concept Design Reviews including the Signal Processing domain have now been imported into a commercial Requirements Capture tool including traceabilty to system and Design Reference Requirements. These are to be developed to a state of completness as part of the Stage1 of the Pre‐construction Phase.
1.7.4 WP2.5.1 Correlator and Central Beamformer
Concept options for the Correlator and Central Beamformer have been explored and documented to a level where first pass estimates of cost and thermal dissipation have been provided. These cover a range of technology options including software, FPGA and ASIC implementation based on experience gained from path‐finder and pre‐cursor projects.
The CoDR review panel report identified that Pulsar synchronous operation of the Correlator had not been covered within the CoDR. This has subsequently resulted in the creation of an Astrometry Chapter to the SKA1 Design Reference Mission, DRM.
1.7.5 WP2.5.2 Digital Beamformers
Initial digital reaffirming concepts for sparse aperture arrays, phased array feeds and central beamforming have been generated and are identified in the table below.
Preliminary analysis (post CoDR) has shown that the operating scenario of the SKA telescope can potentially lower the number of simultaneous beams generated by the central beam‐former.
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1.7.6 WP2.5.3 Non Imaging Processing
Work on the Non‐imaging processing work package has had an emphasis on identifying the engineering parameters required to satisfy the science. This is largely reflected in the top down documentation which includes algorithmic options for pulsar processing including binary searches and transient detection. The concept descriptions identified in the table below have been documented and provide initial estimates for cost and thermal dissipation for pulsar search and timing.
Preliminary analysis (post CoDR) has shown that the operating scenario of the SKA telescope can potentially substantially lower the amount of simultaneous real time processing for Non‐Imaging Processing from that presented at the CoDR.
1.7.7 Deliverables and milestones
The tables below show how those originally within the reporting period. Shaded rows now fall outside the PrepSKA time frame.
Deliverables
Del. no. Deliverable name WP no. Nature
Lead beneficiary
#
Estimated indicative
person months
Diss. level
Delivery Date (orig.)
Delivery Date
(updated)
Date Delivered
D2.11 CoDR Report for Digital Signal Processing 2.5 Report 9 14.89 PP T+27 T+37 T+37
D2.12 Final Digital Signal Processing Wrap‐up Progress Report
2.5 Report 9 22.34 PP T+48 T+48 T+48
Milestones Milestone number Milestone name
Lead beneficiary
# Due date Slip since last
report Date Delivered
MS90 Digital Signal Processing CoDR 9 T+36 0 T+36
MS91 Final Digital Signal Processing Wrap‐up Progress Report 9 T+48 0 T+48
1.8 WP2.6 Software and Computing
1.8.1 Objectives
To formulate and document strategies for the implementation of SKA software and computing hardware, including calibration and imaging techniques, non‐imaging data processing, post processing, data storage distribution of science results, and development of interfaces for users and operators.
1.8.2 Participants
Work package number WP2.6 Start date or starting event T+13 months Work package title Software and computing Activity Type SUPP Participant id 4 7 9 10 12 13 14 Person-months per beneficiary 10 (4) (24) (42) (12) (24) (24)
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Person months delivered Participant id 15 16 19 20 KASI SPDO ICRAR Person-months per beneficiary (24) (4) (4) (18) (5) 59 (+30) (90) Person months delivered
1.8.3 Progress 1.8.3.1 Management
The main focus areas of the work during the reporting were the preparation and execution of the Software and Computing CoDR as well as the support for the development of the SKA Preconstruction Phase Stage 1 WBS and SOW. The CoDR as well as the weeklong work session in Manchester were attended by several representatives from various SKA participating organisations.
Teleconferences within the domain continued during the reporting period.
Although the overall progress in this domain has been slower than expected, the CoDR was successfully concluded and the WBS/SOW inputs were delivered as requested.
1.8.3.2 System Engineering
The primary technical delivery in the Software and Computing domain during the reporting period was the CoDR. The Software and Computing CoDR was conducted during the period 15 to 16 February 2012 at the University of Manchester in Manchester, United Kingdom. During this period members of the SKA community presented the various aspects of Software and Computing, including various concepts, to a five member review panel.
The review panel consisted of members from industry and the radio astronomy community plus the SPDO Project Engineer. The panel members were:
Name Affiliation Brian Glendenning (Chair) NRAO and ALMA Peter Dewdney SDPO, Project Engineer Jeffrey Kantor LSST Tom Liebsch IBM Alberto Di Meglio CERN
The review was also attended by various observers from across the SKA community.
In support of the review 12 documents were developed and distributed to the review panel before the review. These documents were developed by the lead and participating institutes.
In addition, 22 support documents – and another 19 reference documents – were provided to the review panel. The support documents were generated in the process of developing the review documents, while the reference documents are in the public domain but may not be that easy to access.
All documents were made available to all the SKA liaison engineers, the observers, the SKA Science and Engineering Committee (SSEC), International Engineering Advisory Committee (IEAC) and the WP2 Management Team prior to the review.
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Copies of the documents are available on the following site:
http://www.skatelescope.org/public/2012‐02‐15_Software_and_Computing_CoDR/
and on the SKA wiki at:
http://wiki.skatelescope.org/bin/view/SoftwareComputing/WebHome#01_CoDR
The overall finding from the panel was that the milestone was successfully passed.
The finalised report from the review panel was received on 6 March 2012. A copy of the Review Panel as well as the overall outcomes of the review was published in a report: Report on PrepSKA WP2.6, Software and Computing Concept Design Review, document MGT-005.010.020-MR-008, Revision A, dated 2012-03-28.
1.8.4 WP2.6.1: Software Engineering and Architecture Development
Comprehensive documentation with regards to software engineering and architecture were developed and presented during the CoDR. The findings of the panel in this regard were that software engineering was very well addressed and should form the basis of the work to follow. However, the architecture was based on one concept only and the panel recommended that several architectures be investigated during the next phase. This recommendation has been adopted and included in the Sage 1 WBS/SOW for the Science data Processor.
1.8.5 WP2.6.2: Computing Hardware Architecture Development and WP2.6.7: Exascale Computing and Hardware
A High Performance Computing Roadmap was developed and presented during the CoDR. It was recognised by both review panel and the participants that the SKA is facing major challenges in this area and the focus on hardware and hardware aspects, for bot high performance computing and data storage, will be maintained during the next phase of the project.
1.8.6 WP2.6.3: Calibration and Imaging Techniques
Various calibration and imaging techniques and concepts were presented during the CoDR (see document WP2‐050.020.010‐SR‐001). In general the work performed during PrepSKA in this area forms a very good basis for the next phase of the project.
1.8.7 WP2.6.4: Non-imaging Data Processing
The work in this area overlapped somewhat with the investigations and documents presented during the Signal Processing CoDR. However, the progress achieved since the Signal Processing CoDR was captured and presented during the Software and Computing CoDR (see document WP2‐050.020.010‐SR‐002). Work in the area during the next phase will build on the work during PrepSKA and will focus on the further development of the requirements of non‐imaging processing as well as investigations into the boundaries and data handling between the various Elements of the SKA.
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1.8.8 WP2.6.5: Data Products, Data Storage and Data Distribution
First high level concepts were presented during the CoDR. These concepts were based on a large number of assumptions due to a lack of a definitive view on the operations of the SKA. As a result the review panel recommended that the SKA Concept of Operations be drafted and reviewed as soon as possible. This document will have significant influence on the data products, data storage and data distribution of the SKA.
1.8.9 WP2.6.6: Interfaces for Users and Operators
The UCAL CyberSKA project has continued to develop. The concept was presented and reviewed during the CoDR (see document WP2‐050.020.010‐SR‐003). In general the feedback from the panel was very positive but it was pointed out that CyberSKA will have to keep close to the project going forward.
1.8.10 Deliverables and milestones
The tables below show how those originally within the reporting period. Shaded rows now fall outside the PrepSKA time frame.
Deliverables Del. no. Deliverable name WP
no. Nature Lead
beneficiary #
Estimated indicative
person months
Diss. level
Delivery Date
(orig.)
Delivery Date
(updated)
Date Delivered
D2.13 CoDR Report for Software and Computing 2.6 Report 10 28.42 PU T+34 T+47 T+47
D2.14 Final Software and Computing PrepSKA wrap up report
2.6 Report 15 28.42 PU T+48 T+48 T+48
Milestones
Milestone number Milestone name
Lead beneficiary
# Due date Slip since last
report Date Delivered
MS104 CoDR Report for Software and Computing 10 T+47 0 T+47
1.9 WP2.7 Management
1.9.1 Objectives
This project provides support for the WP2 engineering study in terms of project planning, reporting, and financial and related interactions between UMAN (SPDO) and regional SKA programs.
1.9.2 Participants
Work package number WP2.7 Start date or starting event T+0 months Work package title WP2 design study management Activity Type MGT Participant id SPDO Person-months per beneficiary 32
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1.9.3 Progress During the reporting period the WP2 Management Team continued with telecons. This greatly assisted in the coordination of the work throughout WP2. Documentation and details of the team’s work are posted on the UMAN (SPDO) wiki.
The focus of the management effort was, to a large extent, the completion of all the Concept Design Reviews. This was successfully completed. In addition to the CoDRs that were part of the planning, two additional CoDRs were also completed.
During the reporting period several progress reports to both the PrepSKA Board and the Project Director have been developed and published.
A very successful final WP2 annual meeting was held during October 2011. The meeting was attended by more than ninety representatives from across the world.
During the reporting period the SPDO also supported the site selection process. The work included the support for the development of the Request for Information, the interaction with expert panels and groups, and the eventual receipt and distribution of the site bids themselves.
Unfortunately the SPDO lost several technical and administrative personnel during the reporting period. This did result in the increase and workload and pressure on the remaining personnel.
In support of the preparation of the next phase, the SPDO led the development of the Work Breakdown Structure and Statement of Work for Stage 1 of the Preconstruction Phase. The effort included a weeklong work session in Manchester during January/February 2021. The work session was attended by more than seventy people from a large number of SKA participating organisations. It is expected that the WBS/SOW will be completed at the beginning of May 2012.
The transition between the PrepSKA and Preconstruction Phases is taking longer than expected. There are several reasons for this but several lessons are being learnt which will serve the project very well in the transitions to come.
1.9.4 Deliverables and milestones
The tables below show how those originally within the reporting period. Shaded rows now fall outside the PrepSKA time frame.
Deliverables
Del. no. Deliverable name WP
no. Nature Lead
beneficiary #
Estimated indicative person
months
Diss. level
Delivery Date
(orig.)
Delivery Date
(updated)
Date Delivered
D2.15 Periodic WP2 progress report 1 2.7 Report 9 0.7 PP T+18 T+18 T+18
D2.16 Periodic WP2 progress report 2 2.7 Report 9 0.7 PP T+36 T+36 T+36
D2.17 Periodic WP2 progress report 3 2.7 Report 9 0.7 PP T+48 T+48 T+48
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Milestones
Milestone number Milestone name
Lead beneficiary
# Due date Slip since last
report Date Achieved
MS128 Periodic WP2 progress report 1 9 T+18 ‐ T+18
MS129 Periodic WP2 progress report 2 9 T+36 0 T+36
MS130 Periodic WP2 progress report 3 9 T+48 0 T+48
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WP3 Additional studies of the short listed sites for the SKA
WP Leader: Rob Millenaar (SPDO Chief Site Engineer, chair SCWG) Introduction Work Package 3 of PrepSKA deals with studies for characterising various elements of the environment at the two shortlisted candidate sites for hosting the SKA: Southern Africa and Australia. Leading the effort is the SPDO Chief Site Engineer, who took on the work starting on September 1, 2008. A summary of the WP3 sub‐workpackages: • WP3.1 Investigate the RFI environment by carrying out deep integrations at the central site
and selected remote sites. Measure the radio frequency spectrum from 70 MHz up to 2 GHz, down to as close to the ITU‐specified levels as possible, using measurement specifications as laid down in the:
o Protocol document, with hardware constructed according to the:
o Instrumentation Plan document, and to carry out measurements at both sites simultaneously in the way as specified in the:
o Measurement Plan document. The work package identifies 3 phases:
o Design and construction of: Digital spectrometer (CSIRO) RF electronics and system integration (NRF) Software development for data processing and reporting (ASTRON)
o Measurement campaign at the central sites and selected remote sites o Reporting of the measured results.
• WP3.2 Make preparations for the establishment of a Radio Quiet Zone (RQZ) for the central
region of the array. The two sites are pursuing the establishment of RQZs individually. They will keep the SPDO informed of the expected end result and progress in its achievement. The SCWG1 Regulatory Affairs Task Force will provide comments on the individual RQZ processes when requested. The SCWG Task Force will participate in international efforts to have the RQZ issue brought to the attention of the International Telecommunications Union with the aim of obtaining an ITU Recommendation on the longer term. Protection for remote array‐stations will also be considered and assessed.
• WP3.3 Carry out detailed studies of ionospheric fluctuations pertaining to the two sites. Obtain models of the scintillation index, S4, as a function of elevation, azimuth, time of day, and solar cycle at the central and selected remote sites to better characterise the ionosphere. Acquire detailed statistics on the size, velocity and occurrence of Travelling Ionospheric Disturbances (TIDs) for solar maximum and minimum.
• WP3.4 Carry out studies of the effects of tropospheric turbulence on high frequency observations. Study the high‐frequency limits of phase‐referencing and self‐calibration, and determine the implications for the SKA design.
1 The Site Characterisation Working Group (SCWG) replaced the SEWG (Site Evaluation Working Group) mentioned in the original PrepSKA Work Plan.
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• WP3.5 Optimize the array configuration. Study the ideal configurations for the SKA for the different Key Science Projects and determine the single configuration that optimises the total return from the Key Science Projects. Match the “ideal” configuration to the geographical realities of the two short‐listed sites in order to determine the optimum configuration for each site. This task will draw on the work done in SKADS DS2T2 to provide the primary information on the ideal configuration.
• WP3.6 Determine the influence of the site physical characteristics on the telescope design, operations, and costs. The characteristics of the sites (e.g. ambient temperature, wind levels, level of RFI) are likely to have an influence on the telescope design. Information from the Precursor telescopes and from the European SKADS DS3T1 and US TDP studies will be gathered to address this issue and its potential influence on the costs.
• WP3.7 Investigate infrastructure deployment costs and timescales, operational models. 1) Deployment costs based on uniform designs and standards
Develop uniform designs and standards for estimating the costs of the infrastructure and its decommissioning.
2) Timescales for the deployment of the telescope infrastructure
Refine current estimates of the timescale for infrastructure deployment for each of the sites specifically, in consultation with the sites.
3) Operational models
Develop the “ideal” operational model for the SKA which can then be applied to the two sites individually and adapted to the local realities, liaising with WP2.1.3, WP 2.1.4 and WP2.1.5. Provide draft operations agreements for remote stations in other countries, where appropriate.
• WP3.8 Sustainability of the science environment in the face of potential RFI threats. Acquire additional demographic studies of the regions surrounding the central array and the remote stations to refine estimates of the future RFI threat. Analyse the potential consequences of any mining or other development interests near the central sites.
This report gives an overview of the activities within WP3 at the end of the PrepSKA period.
Activities
1.10 General
The work within the Package has concentrated on obtaining information on the conditions and possibilities of the two candidate sites for
1. investigating and reporting on engineering aspects, and
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2. providing information that allow differentiating the two sites for the purpose of selection for hosting the SKA.
Most of the visible activities were in the second grouping, because much of the engineering information was classified until the site selection process was completed. However, now the announcement has been made, all the documentation is available at http://www.skatelescope.org/the‐location/site‐documentation/
The work was done in a changing organisational environment. The SPDO started the work, assisted by Work Groups and Task Forces and reported to the SKA Science and Engineering Committee (SSEC) initially. Later, when the organisational structure towards site selection matured direct lines of responsibilities and coordination were with the SKA Siting Group (SSG) and SKA Site Advisory Committee (SSAC).
Late in 2010 the SPDO recruited an additional Site Engineer to assist the Chief Site Engineer.
Besides the dedicated activities for the eight sub work packages, activities of a more general nature were undertaken. These are summarised in the following sections.
1.10.1 The Site Characterisation Working Group
To assist the SPDO Chief Site Engineer early during the WP3 work a Site Characterisation Working Group was assembled, with representatives from site proponents and other Working Groups that have an interest in site related matters or that could provide required information to WP3. Within the SCWG a number of dedicated Task Forces have been set up to address specific matters. The SCWG has held a number of teleconferences and a face‐to‐face meeting. The work of the SCWG was no longer relevant or required during the second half of the WP3 programme and it was agreed to retire the Working Group as of 2010.
1.10.2 The Task Forces
• A Task Force for Radio Frequency Interference measurements was set up. This TF deals with WP3.1.
• A Task Force for Radio Quiet Zones and Spectrum Management was set up. This TF deals with WP3.2.
• A Task Force for Tropospheric Stability measurements was set up. This TF deals with WP3.4. • A Task Force for Configurations Design (CTF) was set up. This TF deals with WP3.5.
1.10.3 Working visits, meetings and conferences
The Chief Site Engineer has paid several visits to both host organisations for the candidate sites to discuss all aspects of site characterisation. Meetings were organised to kick off and coordinate the work on RFI measurements, tropospheric measurements and array configurations design. Contributions on several conferences and programme meetings were presented.
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1.10.4 Wiki
On the SPDO Wiki, pages were set up for WP3. Per sub‐package, sections contain information, documents and tools on that particular Work Package. The aim of the Wiki is to disseminate information and promote cooperation as much as is possible.
1.10.5 Site information collection
The SPDO has requested and collected information regarding the candidate sites for the SKA, both from South African and Australian hosts. The site engineers have visited both countries and have established the necessary contacts for that purpose.
1.11 The sub-work packages
1.11.1 WP3.1 Investigate the RFI environment by carrying out deep integrations at the central site and selected remote sites
The partners and their responsibilities in this project were:
• ASTRON, The Netherlands – measurement protocol, data processing software, reporting software
• CSIRO, Australia – digital spectrometers, anti aliasing and band separation filters • NRF, South Africa – RF system, trailers, system integration and testing • SPDO, UK – project management, reporting
The work started with writing the sections on a measurement protocol, a measurement and instrumentation plan, which were part of an agreement amongst partners to cooperate, design and build instrumentation and software, and subsequently to operate two systems in order to collect RFI data at the two proposed core sites, plus a selection of remote sites.
Work on the hardware was carried out on two continents:
In Africa the refurbishment and complete overhaul of 2 self‐contained trailers took place. This included the refurbishment and testing of 2 new RF frontends to cover the band 70 MHz to 2 GHz. Reconstruction was done of two cabinets for control and computer equipment, including vastly improved shielded cabinets and cabling. A complete redesign of software control was done.
In Australia a new, fast digital spectrometer with associated sampler, analog amplification and band‐separation was designed. Two systems were built. It took a considerable amount of time to arrive at a working system that meets the specifications, working around flaws in the firmware development system. In the end this was the cause for slips in the schedule.
During several sessions that took place in South Africa both parts of the system were integrated and extensively tested in an RFI anechoic test chamber. During these iterations further improvements to the hardware were carried out, in particular the characterisation and minimisation of self‐generated interference.
After subsequent shipping and deployment at the two sites the Chief Site Engineer witnessed parts of the measurement campaigns in order to verify equal measurement conditions and to verify initial
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results. Over a month in mid 2010 the systems collected data at the candidate core sites. Data quality control was an important aspect that led to re‐measuring in a few cases. All measurements at the core locations were done under radio‐quiet conditions: local hardware was switched off and construction and testing activities at the precursor telescopes at these sites was suspended.
The large volume of data that was collected at the two sites was transferred to a central location for calibration and processing into required deliverables. The software required for this was developed and reviewed. This included software required to generate reports of the measurements.
Finally, in 2011 a further measurement campaign was started to measure the RFI environment at a selection of 4 each candidate remote sites. The final selection of these sites was negotiated in a lengthy process. The intention was to arrive at a fair and representative cross section of the 25 target remote sites in each array configuration. Once these measurements were done reports on these campaigns were produced.
In a separate desktop study the expected RFI environment at each of the 25 target remote station locations for the two cases was investigated. The method used was to make an inventory of expected levels of RFI originating from transmitters surrounding each of these locations, apply propagation attenuation towards the remote station position and plotting the results in various formats.
All measurement and modelling data reports were submitted to an Expert Panel on RFI which evaluated these and delivered a final report to the SKA Siting Group (SSG).
1.11.2 WP3.2 Make preparations for the establishment of a Radio Quiet Zone (RQZ) for the central region of the array
A SCWG Task Force on Radio Quiet Zones and Spectrum Management carried out some of the work. The Task Force followed the development of RQZ’s and the discussions taking place in international fora, especially within the ITU. The Task Force helped in formulating the questions concerning this topic matter in the Request for Information (RfI) that was sent to the candidate sites by the SSG early in 2011.
The response to the Request for Information that was received from the two site proponents contained the requested information on the plans for establishing radio quiet zones and related legislation in their countries. These chapters were forwarded to an Expert Panel on RQZ and spectrum management for their evaluation of the RQZ’s. Their final report was sent to the SKA Siting Group (SSG).
1.11.3 WP3.3 Carry out detailed studies of ionospheric fluctuations pertaining to the two sites
A report on ionospheric scintillation was commissioned from an external consultant. This expert has much experience in investigating this phenomenon and had done a report for the first round of short listing candidate sites for the SKA. The consultant completed the Ionospheric Scintillation Investigation Reports (ISIR) for the core areas of the two site proponents. From the reports it becomes clear that the two sites are the best sites on the southern hemisphere we can wish for, as far as the ionosphere is concerned.
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An additional report was requested from South Africa, to assess the influence, if any, of the South Atlantic Anomaly of the ionosphere. This phenomenon was flagged as an unknown factor in the site bid report of South Africa (2005). The requested report is intended as a follow‐up to that concern. The investigation was commissioned from the South African Hermanus Observatory, who are well equipped to perform such an investigation. The report was received and to avoid any possible bias it was submitted to an external consultant for evaluation.
The Chief Site Engineer wrote a final summary report on all findings, including earlier conclusions. The report was sent to an Expert Panel, a subpanel of the SKA Site Advisory Committee (SSAC).
1.11.4 WP3.4 Carry out studies of the effects of tropospheric turbulence on high frequency observations
On advise from the SSEC and IEAC it was decided to extend the tropospheric characterisation beyond desktop studies, and perform measurements at the two core sites. After a brief period of investigation of options, JPL was commissioned to build, test and deliver two identical tropospheric site test interferometers (STI). These systems were delivered to the site proponents late 2010.
In South Africa the system was deployed early in 2011 and started measuring. The SPDO site engineers were present during testing and commissioning. Data acquisition was routinely done by the Chief Site Engineer remotely via internet. Data quality checks were done and interim reports made.
In Australia deployment of the system took a bit longer, until mid 2011. The SPDO site engineers were present during testing and commissioning. Again, data acquisition was routinely done by the Chief Site Engineer remotely via internet. Data quality checks were done and interim reports made.
For the final report the Chief Site Engineer did the data processing and production of graphs. This final report was sent to an Expert Panel on tropospheric turbulence, who were able to deliver their evaluation report late in 2011.
1.11.5 WP3.5 Optimize the array configuration
Designing an optimum array configuration for the SKA Phase 2 has been a major part of WP3. The ambition to arrive at an ideal configuration has been difficult to realise because of the many uncertainties in feasible technologies, associated cost and uncertain budgets. Instead it was agreed to investigate configurations from the perspective of a model for which implementation options can be evaluated, with the intention to allow differentiating between the two host countries for the purpose of site selection. The configurations that will ultimately be designed for the SKA Phase 1 and 2 will use the model configuration as a starting point.
A special meeting was held in March 2009 to kick off the work of the Configurations Task Force, with members from South Africa (providing the software tool), the University of Cambridge (doing the majority of the design and analysis work) and the SPDO (the Chief Site Engineer organising and coordinating the work). A subsequent meeting was held where agreement was sought and found amongst the two site proponents and the SPDO on the methods, participation and timescales of the design work and deliverables.
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In the Summer of 2009 a first report was produced detailing the results of analysis testing the sensitivity of a set of configuration figures‐of‐merit to changes in array layouts. The purpose of this initial study is to find empirically the degrees of freedom that exist in placing antennas and stations, such that good scientific properties are obtained, while keeping the cost of the infrastructure within bounds.
An important aspect of adapting the basic array design to the realities in the field is applying a mask for where antennas can or cannot be placed because of terrain, geography or radio interference limitations. Much time and effort were devoted to coming to an agreement amongst partners on the specification of these mask elements and for the delivery to the SPDO of these masks. Once these were available realistic layouts could be designed for the arrays.
In close cooperation with the site proponents, the CTF designed their configurations in the central 180km radius area. The proponents fine‐tuned the locations of the remote stations beyond this radius. The resulting configurations were the site‐specific array configurations, used as the model on which the responses to the Request for Information should be based.
For the assessment of scientific quality of these configurations the CTF has developed a number of new figures of merit, along with those that were used for the site short listing process of 2006. In its final report the CTF took the site‐specific configurations and evaluated these figures of merit. This report was submitted to the SSAC.
1.11.6 WP3.6 Determine the influence of the site physical characteristics on the telescope design, operations, and costs
During the course of the WP3 activities the two sites have been delivering information on weather and climate at their proposed sites to the SPDO. Because of the nature of the site selection process this information could not (yet) be shared with the community. Instead a brief site‐agnostic report on climate conditions was issued early on.
For the Request for Information that was sent to the sites in 2011 questions were formulated on weather, climate, geophysics and other site‐related aspects. The responses were collected into a report by the SPDO, for submission to the SSAC and SSAC. This report contains a wealth of environmental information that will play an important role once it can be released when the site selection process is over.
1.11.7 WP3.7 Investigate infrastructure deployment costs and timescales, operational models
For the Request for Information that was sent to the sites in 2011 questions were formulated on their view on issues like cost and operations, but also aspects of security, legal matters and customs and excise. The responses were collected into reports by the SPDO, for submission to external consultants and directly to the SSG and SSAC. Consolidating the cost report by the SPDO was a major task. These reports, together with the reports from the external consultants contain a wealth of information, considered by the SSAC for their site advise.
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1.11.8 WP3.8 Sustainability of the science environment in the face of potential RFI threats
The Request for Information issued to the site proponents included questions on spectrum management, protection measures enforced and on the outlook of spectrum use in their region. The responses that were received, in a certain case very extensive, were forwarded to an external, independent consultant. The consultant did their own analysis on these topics and even though more could have been expected of an assessment of the proponent’s information, the final reports was valuable and forwarded to SSG and SSAC.
Status of deliverables
The WP3 deliverables are summarized in Table 1. The original delivery date was based on the starting date of 1 April 2008. The table shows that many of these deliverables were not completed according to this schedule. The reasons are that workforce resources were not made available on the originally planned schedule, including the chief site engineer who began work at T+5 months. In addition there were substantial delays in the completion of several tasks, either because development took much more time than anticipated, or a late start of the investigations, due to understaffing. One deliverable (D3.3) was not dealt with because it was deemed not to be within the scope of the WP3 package, but instead requires a different multi disciplinary approach.
Nevertheless, at the end of PrepSKA all targets have been met in a satisfactory manner. The information obtained within the WP3 package has yielded a wealth of information, on which the site decision has been based.
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Table 1: WP3 Deliverables summary
2 CO= confidential, PU= public
Deliverables
Del. no. Deliverable name WP no. Nature Lead
beneficiary #
Diss. level2 Delivery Date (orig.) Date Delivered
D3.1 Report on ionospheric scintillation and TIDs for Australia and Southern Africa Completed 3.3 Report 9 CO T+7 T+34
D3.2 Deliver RFI hardware and software Completed 3.1 Other 9 ‐ T+12 T+27
D3.3 Report on phase referencing and self calibration Not completed, because of change of scope 3.4 Report 9 PU T+12 ‐T+48
D3.4 Report on the optimum configuration for the SKA Completed 3.5 Report 9 CO T+18 T+30, T+41
D3.5 Report on influence of physical characteristics of the sites on design, operations, and costs Completed 3.6 Report 9 CO T+36 T+41
D3.6 Report on the infrastructure deployment timescales, costs and operational models Completed 3.7 Report 9 CO T+30 T+41
D3.7 Report on the risk analysis of the science environment Completed 3.8 Report 9 CO T+30 T+41
D3.8 Report on RFI measurements in Australia Completed 3.1 Report 9 CO T+33 T+41
D3.9 Report on RFI measurements in South Africa Completed 3.1 Report 9 CO T+33 T+41
D3.10 Report on Radio Quiet Zones for short‐listed SKA sites Completed 3.2 Report 9 CO T+36 T+39
D3.11 Final site report Completed 3 Report 9 CO T+36 T+45
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Work Package 4 Governance & Legal Framework
WP Leader: Patricia Vogel (NWO) 1. Objectives
The objectives of Work Package 4 are:
‐ to study options for viable models of governance and a legal framework for the SKA project during its construction and operational phase
‐ to obtain professional legal and governance advice as appropriate to inform the development of such options
‐ to provide input to the Agencies SKA Group (ASG) and its work streams for the discussion and resolution of favoured options.
2. Participants Work Package number 4 Start date or starting event: T+2 Work Package title Governance and Legal Framework Activity Type SUPP Participant id 1 2 3 4 22 7 8 Person-months per beneficiary:
(6) 36 (+ 6)
(6) (6) (12) (3) (3)
Person months delivered Participant id 9 10 12 15 NSF AUI Person-months per beneficiary (4) (2) (6) (2) (1) (1) Person months delivered 3. Personnel
PrepSKA Work Package 4 was led by the Netherlands Organisation of Scientific Research (NWO). Patricia Vogel was work package leader, supported by policy officers Miriam Roelofs and Maaike Damen and with administrative support from Liesbeth Gerritsen and Kirsten Soekhoe.
The WP4 activities were carried out at NWO, with in‐kind support from NWO also supported by ASTRON and dedicated extra funding from the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science to support NWO in this project.
4. Progress
Towards the establishment of the SKA Organisation
In the PrepSKA Board meeting of 16 June 2010 it was agreed that WP4 would give priority to the short‐term governance. In the period spanning the 3rd periodic report (April 2011 – March 2012), the activities of WP4 were primarily aimed towards the establishment of a legal entity for the pre‐construction phase.
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In its first meeting on April 2nd 2011, the SKA Founding Board asked NWO, the PrepSKA WP4 leader, to lead the Legal Workstream. The aim of the Legal Workstream was to develop a signatory ready implementation agreement to establish a national legal entity to govern the SKA project in the pre‐construction phase. The main activities of WP4 were to prepare and provide guidance to the discussion on the establishment of this legal entity.
NWO assigned, on behalf of the SKA Founding Board, the London‐based law firm, Clifford Chance to prepare the draft documents, provide guidance notes and to guide the discussions in the Legal Working Group. The first draft was presented to the SKA Founding Board in May 2011. The SKA Founding Board agreed to establish the Legal Working Group (LWG), consisting of a dedicated group of Founding Board representatives to develop the legal documents and guide the discussion. In this process towards the establishment of the legal entity several updates and drafts were produced, commented and discussed in telecons and face to face meetings of the LWG, organised by NWO. The LWG presented the legal framework and governance structure with draft legal documents in several Founding Board meetings and guided the ensuing discussion. Remaining and upcoming issues were addressed in the LWG with further legal guidance and advice by Clifford Chance’s experts.
Finally, on November 23rd 2011, seven national parties signed the legal documents and established the SKA Organisation. After the signing ceremony the PrepSKA WP4 team provided input for the SKA Organisation Implementation Group to advise the interim SKA Director in the further implementation of the SKA Organisation and provided input for implementation issues discussed in the SKA Board meetings of 21 December 2011 and 18 January 2012.
In the final months of PrepSKA, WP4 worked on its White Paper “Establishment of a pre‐construction legal entity for the SKA”, which describes the route towards the establishment of the SKA Organisation in more detail. With the delivery of the White Paper, the activities of WP4 were completed.
Pre-Construction Working Group
WP4 has also participated in and provided input to the Pre‐Construction Working Group. The main contribution was to provide input for the discussion of the start‐up process of the SKA Project and for the draft Business Plan. Furthermore, NWO organised and facilitated a meeting for the pre‐construction group in The Hague on May 21st, 2011.
Converging activities
WP4 has organised a policy meeting for PrepSKA work packages 4, 5 and 6 during the SKA Forum2011 in Banff. The aim of the meeting was to update each other on progress that was made and to discuss outstanding issues.
Other Activities
‐ Exchange of experiences with other ESFRI projects by occasion and in the 5th EC Workshop for Preparatory Phase Projects, 15 June 2011
‐ Contributing to the other work streams of the SKA Founding Board
Meetings
2011 02‐Apr Founding Board Rome 20‐May Founding Board The Hague
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21‐May Pre‐construction group The Hague 31‐May LWG Telecon 09‐Jun Resourcing PEP Workshop Telecon 09‐Jun LWG Telecon 10‐Jun LWG Telecon 23‐Jun LWG Telecon 24‐Jun Communication Workstream Telecon 01‐Jul Founding Board Telecon 2‐3 July WP5 workshop Banff 04‐Jul Policy meeting PrepSKA work packages Banff 05‐Jul SKA Founding Board Banff 06‐Jul International SKA Forum 2011 Banff 07‐Jul PrepSKA Board Banff 21‐Jul LWG Telecon 26‐Jul LWG Telecon 28‐Jul LWG NWO 01‐Sep LWG Telecon 08‐Sep LWG Telecon 16‐Sep LWG Telecon 29‐Sep SKA Founding Board Heathrow 06‐Oct LWG Telecon 07‐Oct Pre‐construction Group Telecon 03‐Nov Pre‐construction Group Telecon 04‐Nov LWG Telecon 09‐Nov SKA Founding Board Telecon 16‐Nov SKA Founding Board Telecon 23‐Nov SKA Founding Board Heathrow 23‐Nov Establishment SKA Organisation Heathrow 29‐Nov SKA Organisation Implementation Group Telecon 2012 05‐Jan SKA Organisation Implementation Group Telecon 03‐Apr PrepSKA Board Schiphol
In between these meetings, the PrepSKA WP 4 team supported the leader of the LWG (Vogel) and had frequent interaction with Clifford Chance’s legal advisors to discuss and resolve upcoming issues in the process of preparation of the legal documents.
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6. Deliverables and Milestones
TABLE 1. DELIVERABLES
Del. no.
Deliverable name WP no.
Lead bene-ficiary
Nature Dissemi-
nation level
Delivery date from Annex I (proj month)
Actual / Forecast delivery date
Status
submitted
Contractual
Yes/No
Comments
D4.1 Study on best practice Governance and Legal frameworks
4 2 Report PP T+19 T+22 Yes
D4.2 Options for Governance and Legal frameworks 4 2 Report CO‐ T+27 T+39 Yes
D4.3 White paper on Governance Model and legal framework
4 2 Report CO T+33 T+48 Yes
Delivery dates of D4.2 and D4.3 are delayed by 12 and 15 months, respectively. This delay is due to the priority given to provide input to the Pre‐Construction Working Group, understaffing from December 2009 to April 2010, and the fact that merging the policies of the different working packages is a time‐consuming process.
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TABLE 2. MILESTONES
Milestone no.
Milestone name Work package no
Lead beneficiary
Delivery date from Annex I
Achieved Yes/No
Actual / Forecast achievement date
Comments
MS152
Study on best practice Governance and Legal frameworks
4 NWO T+19 Yes T+22
MS153 Options for Governance and Legal frameworks
4 NWO T+34 Yes T+39
MS154
White paper on Governance Model and legal framework
4 NWO T+33 Yes T+48
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7. Deviation from Annex I
The shift of focus from the long‐term to the short‐term governance is the only deviation from Annex I that WP4 experienced. In 2010 it had been agreed by the PrepSKA Board to investigate the governance arrangements for the near future. The end of the preparatory phase was nearing and by the end of 2011 existing governance arrangements would come to an end. The SKA Project was preparing itself to enter the next phase: the pre‐construction phase (2012‐2015). During the pre‐construction phase the capacities of a legal entity are required to be able to make important decisions for the SKA Project (e.g., on employment of staff, SKA design, construction contracts, site selection). Work Package 4 was asked to shift its focus from the long‐term to the short‐term governance and to support and guide the establishment of a legal entity for SKA in the pre‐construction phase. Next to a change of focus, the major efforts that were needed to meet the ambitious timeline also caused a delay, especially in the 2nd deliverable of WP4.
From the instalment of the Pre‐construction Working Group, WP4 has played an active role in its activities. The contribution of WP4 consisted especially in providing input on legal and governance issues in the discussion of the start‐up process of the SKA Project. The experience gained in WP4’s earlier work for PrepSKA proved to be very useful in this context. At the same time, WP4’s other deliverables have benefitted from WP4’s work for the pre‐construction Working Group, since the legal entity selected for the pre‐construction phase of the SKA should allow for a smooth transition into a long‐term arrangement.
The white paper was scheduled for the end of PrepSKA to allow the work of all policy work packages to fully converge and to cover all relevant output of the WP4 work. Due to the no cost extension of PrepSKA, this meant that the White Paper was delivered in April 2012 instead of January 2011.
8. WP4 Financial Report from 1 April 2011 to 31 March 2012
Subcontracting costs to date: € 14.460,99
In February 2012 Clifford Chance Lawyers in London (UK) has been subcontracted for providing a summary note describing the main characteristics of the legal framework and governance for the SKA Organisation. This summary note is published in the Annex to WP4’s White Paper (deliverable 3, April 2012).
The total budget for subcontracting in WP4 is € 40.000. The original budget was € 80.000 and in our 2nd Periodic Report we requested transfer of € 40.000 to personnel (€ 30.000) and direct costs (€ 10.000). Expenditure to date of this report (31 March 2011) is € 14.461,15. The remaining budget is € 25.538,85. Also in this 3rd period we underspent the subcontracting in favour of a larger staff effort by the WP4 team (as explained below). Part of the remaining budget will be transferred to the personnel costs.
Personnel costs to date: € 271.291,07
More WP4 staff effort than originally had been foreseen was needed to fulfil all targets of this Work Package. As was announced in the 2nd Periodic Report, the legal work for the SKA Founding Board in particular has required a lot of effort of the WP4 staff in NWO. The PrepSKA Board has defined in its meeting of June 2010 this legal work to prepare for the pre‐construction phase as a priority for WP4 and encouraged WP4 to continue on this track and even intensify where possible once the SKA Founding Board was established. WP4 supported the Legal Workstream of the SKA Founding Board, which was tasked with
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the development of the pre‐construction governance for SKA and establishment of a legal entity before the end of 2011. In the last part of the PrepSKA‐project WP4 3rd deliverable requires staff effort from the WP4‐team. Again less PrepSKA WP4 work than foreseen has been subcontracted to other parties but was carried out by the WP4 team itself.
The current budget for personnel is € 258.988. Expenditure to date (1‐4‐ 2012) is € 271.291,07.
As is stated before, the extra costs for staff effort has exceeded the original budget for personnel. We propose to transfer € 15.000 from the remaining budget for subcontracting to the budget for personnel in order to include all the personnel costs to date. Within this budget all WP4 deliverables have been delivered.
Direct costs to date: € 56.109.86
The total budget for travel and other direct costs in WP4 is € 58.000. Expenditure to date of report is € 56.109.86.
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Work Package 5 Procurement and Industrial Involvement
WP Leader: Corrado Perna (INAF) Objectives
To define options on how the SKA project should approach procurement, and how it should involve industry in global, regional and national contexts Participants Work package number WP5 Start date or starting event: T+0 months Work package title Decision support for SKA procurement and industrial involvement Activity Type SUPP Participant id 1 2 3 4 22 7 8 Person-months per beneficiary: (6) (5) (6) 36 (+6) (6) (6) (2) Person months delivered Participant id 10 12 15 NSF SPDO AUI 9 Person-months per beneficiary: (2) (6) (1) (1) (3) (1) (2) Person months delivered Work progress and achievements during the period
Summary
PrepSKA WP5 was in charge of delivering a set of procurement models for the development and construction of the SKA and to define a strategy to involve industry in the project development process, starting from the current concept phase into the construction phases. The work was undertaken under the leadership of INAF, using internal experts as well external consultants.
The major piece of work, the document “Towards a Procurement Strategy for the SKA” is complete draft. It was reviewed at a procurement Workshop for WP5 members 2‐3 July 2011 at Banff, Canada. (This meeting coincided with the annual SKA Forum).
Personnel
The WP5 leader was Corrado Perna, supported by:
Giulia Antinucci, assistant staff; Francesco Corbellini, technician staff with an expertise in data storage management;
and by external consultants, that at the present stage, are:
Phil Crosby, 2 years consultancy shared with SPDO support, and ongoing part‐time effort Riccardo Colangelo, ad hoc consultancy for deliverable 5.1.
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In addition, the Board Member is Giampaolo Vettolani, Coordinator of INAF Large Programmes.
Progress and issues
Task Action Status
5.1 Guidelines for Procurement for WP5 DELIVERED
5.2 Defining criteria to identify the industrial capabilities related to the SKA Design requirements.;
COMPLETE
Performing surveys (national/regional based) using the well defined selection criteria;
COMPLETE
Creating an on‐line database COMPLETE
5.3
5.4
5.5
Merged into a unique document: “Towards a procurement model for the SKA”
COMPLETE
Split into 3 deliverables again to satisfy EC deliverable criteria
T+48
5.6 “White paper on procurement options” COMPLETE T+48
Following delivery of the (5.1) document “Guidelines for procurement for WP2”, the WP5 working group commenced the task of researching and preparing reports for deliverables 5.3‐5.4‐5.5. Work proceeded on this during most of 2010, with substantial background information coming from knowledge and experience within case studies of analogous mega‐science projects. The team prepared detailed interim reports covering specific topics, for example:
• Scaling up for SKA Procurement (WP2 to SKA Guidelines) • Contracting Models • Approach to Procurement Specifications • Ensuring Competiveness • Pricing • Split buying • COTS Purchasing • Industry Consortia • Integration between the SKA & Suppliers • Procurement Risk Management • Contractual Terms and Conditions • The Procurement office
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• The procurement framework for the SKA • Procurement rules/environments • World Trade Organisation (WTO) Rules • European Community (EC) Rules • United States of America (US) rules • SKA host site countries – procurement environment • Key procurement risks examined against procurement options • Juste-Retour and Member Balancing policies and approaches
It was realised that more value to the SKA project would be gained by integrating this information into a practical strategy, and thus the findings have been merged into a single document titles “Towards a procurement Strategy for the SKA”, which has been the focus of effort from late 2010.
Communication and reporting
Draft and reports had been regularly submitted. Telecon held in September and next scheduled in the firsT week of June. There have been regular telecon and face‐to‐face meetings with the WP5 working team.
Schedule
In line with the revised DoW
Resources
The staff expenditure has been somewhat greater than foreseen but should not increase significantly up to the end of the project. In contrast, travel spending has been lower than originally predicted, but it is foreseen to increase in the next few months as the global capability survey begins.
Note that the budget for external consultancies has been strongly modified due to secondment of Mr. Crosby to the SPDO office, so a review of the possible subcontract expenses is in progress.
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Deliverables and milestones tables
Deliverables (excluding the periodic and final reports)
TABLE 1. DELIVERABLES3
Del. no.
Deliverable name WP no. Lead beneficiary
Nature Dissemination
level
Delivery date from Annex I (proj month)
Delivered Yes/No
Actual / Forecast delivery date
Comments
5.1 Guidelines for Procurement for WP2
5 INAF Report PP T+12 Yes T+18 Delivered
5.2 Industry Inventory 5 INAF Report PP T+24 No T+36 Delivered
5.3 Analysis of Procurement Models
5 INAF Report PP T+33 No T+33 Combined paper including 5.3, 5.4 and 5.5, delivered. Split by PM
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5.4 Risk analysis of the procurement models
5 INAF Report PP T+33 No T+33 under direction from CP
5.5 Deliver report on procurement models to the SKA Forum
5 INAF Report PP T+33 No T+33
5.6 Deliver options paper for FA 5 INAF Report PP T+33 No T+33 Delivered
5.7 Incorporate white paper on final procurement model in Prepska report
5 INAF Report PP T+33 No T+33 Duplicate of 5.6, delivered
Milestones
TABLE 2. MILESTONES
Milestone no.
Milestone name Work package no
Lead
beneficiary
Delivery date from Annex I
Achieved Yes/No
Actual / Forecast achievement date
Comments
5.1 Deliver guidelines for procurement in WP2
5 INAF T+12 Yes T+18 Delivered
5.2 Deliver report on inventory of relevant industries
5 INAF T+24 No T+33 Delivered
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5.3 Deliver report on procurement models
5 INAF T+33 No T+33 Delivered
5.4 Deliver draft option paper on procurement
5 INAF T+33 No T+33 Delivered
5.5 Deliver inventory of policies and goals
5 INAF T+33 No T+33 Delivered
5.6 Deliver white paper on final procurement optiond
5 INAF T+33 No T+33 Delivered
5.7 Incorporate white paper on final procurement options
5 INAF T+33 No T+33 Essentially duplicate
of 5.6 ‐ delivered
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Work Package 6 SKA Funding Model
WP Leader: Simon Berry (STFC)
Objectives PrepSKA WP6 aims to develop options for the international community on how the SKA might be funded. It is addressing the construction, operating and ultimate decommissioning of the facility. Work is undertaken under the leadership of STFC, using an expert core group of funding agency and government officials. It is one of three policy work packages within PrepSKA, and works closely with WP4 (governance) and WP5 (procurement). Participants Work package number 6 Start date or starting event: T+0 Work package title Developing the funding model for the SKA Activity Type4 SUPP Participant id 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Person-months per beneficiary: 36 (+6) (5) (2) (6) (1) (6) (3) Person months delivered Participant id 8 12 (US) NSF 9 Person-months per beneficiary: (3) (6) (1) (3) Person months delivered Personnel WP6 is led by the Science and Technology Facilities Council. Simon Berry (SB) is workpackage leader, supported by policy officer Sherrie‐Lee Neill (SLN, on maternity leave from May 2011) and administrator Simon Haynes (SH). Other STFC staff contributing to WP6 during the project lifetime have been Tony Medland and Michelle Cooper.
Progress The third period of work for PrepSKA WP6 has focused on:
• Exploring options and structures for delivering the resources needed for SKA Phase 1 and Phase 2 construction, including the potential for non‐government financing through the European Investment Bank; and (D6.2, D6.4, D6.5)
• Delivering a workable funding model as part of the SKA pre‐construction phase Business Plan, developed as part of the establishment of the SKA Organisation (D6.4, D6.5)
Based on the evolving understanding of resource need, particularly focused on SKA Phase 1, WP6 has examined and presented various concepts of how contribution levels might be apportioned between potential funding partners. These have included models with approaches based around fixed points (similar to that of major subscription organisations), such as determining contribution using national or regional economic indicators such as GDP metrics, and also via measures of ‘community strength’ by examining the population of astronomers in countries. Reaction to these models was provided by the community at various SKA meetings, and pointed the way to
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considering alternative ‘share‐based’ mechanisms. Amongst several presented and discussed, concepts examining potential arrangements in the SKA Phase 1 era with two discrete share membership levels and some initial assumptions about ‘host premium’ are now being used by the SKA Board of Directors as the basis for their own discussions as the project moves into a more advanced phase of discussion on the future funding arrangements.
In parallel, during 2011, WP6 became heavily involved in the pre‐construction phase policy development activities. Berry led the Agencies working group investigating resourcing in the pre‐construction phase and then facilitated detailed discussions on resourcing levels in the development of the SKA Business Plan. This work was highly relevant to WP6 and could not have taken place without the impetus provided by PrepSKA; essentially, in developing the Business Plan at the core of the new SKA Organisation, a ‘real‐world’ test was made of developing a multi‐parametered model of funding contributions for the project. Basic rules were required from the governance model, and detailed discussions undertaken with funders, split between differing types of contribution (cash and non‐cash). Completion of this plan was a significant step for PrepSKA and the wider project, in conjunction with the other policy workpackages. Significant outputs, not formally PrepSKA deliverables, were the Business Plan and associated resourcing plan. There were no resource impacts associated with this refocused activity which was managed alongside core WP6 work and parallel involvement of workpackage staff in the site selection process ongoing in the period.
In Q1 2012, contact was re‐established with the European Investment Bank (EIB). After initial discussions in 2010 which were acknowledged by both sides to be premature, WP6 met with the EIB and presented detailed information on the project funding and governance status moving into the pre‐construction phase. Further dialogue, now being transferred to the SKA Board, has established a working relationship and appropriate level of understanding of the financing tools potentially available to SKA in the construction phase and beyond. The initial analysis of these discussions is reported in the final Deliverable 6.5.
Full financial details are available in the associated Form C. Within WP6 there were no resourcing issues. The project remained slightly underspent overall at STFC as a consequence of the slow staffing ramp‐up in the early stages of the project.
Communication and reporting WP6 has made extensive use of the PrepSKA wiki (http://webmail.jb.man.ac.uk/PrepSKAwiki) as a communication tool. Core group face‐to‐face meetings took place, and were supplemented by teleconferences on a regular basis. Update reports were submitted to the PrepSKA Board. Resources Since 2009, WP6 has been at its full complement of staff. From May 2011 until the end of the PrepSKA phase, WP6 lost Sherrie‐Lee Neill (nee Samuel) to maternity leave. Additional effort was deployed (when required) as the project continued, in order to maintain the planned schedule of work. Milestones and deliverables in the reporting period
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Deliverables
Deliverable title Due date Slip since last report
Delivered
D6.2 Report on Options for private or corporate funding
T+33 months
D6.4 Final paper with full funding model options for interested SKA funding agencies
T+33 months
D6.5 White paper for financial models for SKA
T+35 months
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Work Package 7 SKA Implementation Plan
WP Leader: Simon Garrington (UMAN) Objectives The original aim of WP7 was to provide the final consolidated implementation plan for the next phase of the SKA project based on the work carried out in work packages 2 to 7. This has now been subsumed in the Project Execution Plan, the Business Plan for the new Square Kilometre Array Organisation, and the Work Breakdown structure for the SKA Pre‐Construction phase. WP7 was also required to deliver reports on the social and economic benefits of the SKA project.
Participants Work package number 7 Start date or starting event: T+33 months Work package title An implementation plan leading to construction of the SKA Activity Type SUPP Participant id 1 2 3 4 21 22 7 Person-months per beneficiary: (3) (3) (5) (3) (1) (3) (3) Participant id 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Person-months per beneficiary: (0.5) (3) (3) (1) (3) (1) (1) Participant id 15 16 17 18 19 20 SPDO Person-months per beneficiary: (2) (0.5) (0.5) (0.5) (0.5) (0.5) (3) Participant id NSF ICRAR KASI NRAO Person-months per beneficiary: (1) (0.5) (0.5) (0.5) Progress The original aim of WP7 was to produce an overall implementation plan for the Square Kilometre Array. With the SKA Organisation in now place, with its own Members and Directors, it is not clear that a WP7 group could be mandated to produce an independent plan. The Business Plan formed the basis of the incorporation of the SKA Organisation and together with the Project Execution Plan these form a complete and costed strategy, agreed by the Project The Phase 1 Work Breakdown Structure now adds a detailed plan of work for the next 18 months, leading to System Requirements Review. The final version (now due for release in August, after revisions which include the site decision) will state exactly what work will be delivered. Hence the combination of the Project Execution Plan (PEP), the Business Plan (BP) and the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) form the agreed core of the WP7 Implementation plan. The generation of the PEP and BP was a major effort by relatively small groups. The initial generation of the WBS has been major effort by a larger group of about 60 people with almost all PrepSKA partners represented, co‐ordinated by SPO, and culminating in week‐long meeting in Jan 2012, as envisaged by WP7. The April 2012 release of the WBS, coordinated by SPO, runs to 461 pages. The WP7 implementation report text (Deliverables 7.1 and 7.3, now combined) is now being finalised. The PEP, BP and WBS form the core material and are included as annexed, while the
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introductory text provides an Executive Summary, and sections on the Strategy for the preconstruction phase, the development of the WBS, the role of work package consortia, a summary of the Stage 1 WBS, descriptions of the system engineering approach, the roles of industrial partners, the SKA Organisation (its creation, structure, relationships, funding an governance) and an update on the site selection process. The final version of the paper on the socio‐impact of the SKA has been delivered . The report covers a review of current ideas on the general benefits of internationally collaborative science on individual societies and economies, looking in particular at the quantification of the economic return on ‘pure research and development’ and the wide ranging benefits to society. SKA is very much an example of ‘Big Science’ and studies of the economic return from other Big Science projects such as CERN and ESA are analysed. The ways in which astronomy projects provide inspiration to a wide cross‐section of society into science and technical matters in general as well as the particular technical developments related to astronomy, such as detectors, are reviewed. Technical spin‐offs from radio astronomy are also reviewed, and the opportunities for industrial engagement and technological development in the key technical areas of the SKA project are highlighted. It is clear that the interactions between industries and the SKA project go beyond the simple ‘technology‐push’ model and the modes of interactions between industries and the project are discussed in this wider context.
Milestones and Deliverables in the reporting period Deliverables
Deliverable #
Deliverable title Original delivery date
Delivery date updated
Delivered
D7.1 Draft costed system design and technical reports, now combined with D7.3
T+48 T+48 Delivered
D7.2 Paper on socio‐impact of SKA T+26 T+40 Delivered D7.3 Full SKA implementation plan draft T+48 T+48 Delivered Milestones
Milestone Number
Milestone name Due date
Slip since last report
Delivered
7.1 Draft costed system design and technical reports, now combined with M7.3
Met
7.2 Paper on socio‐impact of SKA T+40 14 Met
7.3 Full SKA implementation plan draft met
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4 Explanation of the use of the resources
The details of the Justification of Costs are now recorded in the EC report. Copies of the C Forms as submitted via the FORCE website are shown below. Table 6 summarises the expenditure in this reporting period, and the EC Summary Financial Report follows in table 7
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7. Financial statements – Form C and Summary financial report
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Table xxx: Summary of Expenditure during the period 01/04/2011 – 31/03/2012
Organisation Task Activity Start Date End Date PI/ Manager RTD 75% only Support Management Subcontracting Period 3 Coats
STFC WP6 Staff 01/04/2008 31/03/2011 Berry 195,138.23 195,138.23 Mgmt Sub-contracts - T&S, consumables 20,156.24 20,156.24 Indirect - - Total 215,294.47 215,294.47 STFC Total 215,294.47 215,294.47
N.W.O WP4 Staff 01/04/2008 31/03/2011 Vogel 78,002.98 78,002.98
Sub-contracts 2,412.99 2,412.99
T&S, consumables 16,555.05 16,555.05
Indirect 20% 18,911.61 18,911.61
Total 113,469.64 115,882.63
Allowed indirect 7% 6,619.06 6,619.06
N.W.O EC contribution 101,177.09 2,412.99 103,590.08 INAF WP5 Staff 01/04/2008 31/03/2011 Perna 22,342.73 22,342.73 P3 Sub-contracts 4,000.00 98,036.53 102,036.53 T&S, consumables 18,901.70 18,901.70 Indirect 60% 24,746.66 24,746.66 Total 65,991.09 4,000.00 98,036.53 168,027.62 Allowed indirect 7% 2,887.11 2,887.11 INAF P3 EC contribution 44,131.54 4,000.00 98,036.53 146,168.07 INAF WP5 Staff 01/04/2008 31/03/2011 Perna - 20,271.22 - 20,271.22 Adj P1 Sub-contracts 364.00 364.00 T&S, consumables - 5.45 - 5.45 Indirect 60% - 12,166.00 - 12,166.00
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Total - 32,078.67 - 32,078.67 Allowed indirect 7% - 1,419.37 - 1,419.37 INAF P1 EC contribution - 21,332.04 - - - 21,332.04 INAF WP5 Staff 01/04/2008 31/03/2011 Perna 21,206.97 21,206.97 Adj P2 Sub-contracts - T&S, consumables 926.54 926.54 Indirect 60% 13,280.11 13,280.11 Total 35,413.62 35,413.62 Allowed indirect 7% 1,549.35 1,549.35 INAF P2 EC contribution 23,682.86 - - 23,682.86 UMAN WP1 Staff 01/04/2008 31/03/2011 Garrington 97,149.38 730,640.73 92,298.23 920,088.34 P3 WP2 Subcontracting - 130,885.01 130,885.01 WP2a T&S, consumables 246,720.42 217,064.44 35,115.95 498,900.81 WP3 Indirect 60% 206,321.88 568,623.10 76,448.51 851,393.49 WP5 Total 550,191.68 1,516,328.27 203,862.69 130,885.01 2,401,267.65 WP7 % indirect allowed 0.60 0.07 1.00 -
Allowed indirect 206,321.88 66,339.36 76,448.51 349,109.75
UMAN P3 EC contribution 412,643.76 1,014,044.53 203,862.69 130,885.01 1,761,435.99 UMAN
Staff 01/04/2008 31/03/2011 Garrington - 48,149.20 - 48,149.20
Adj P1
Subcontracting 999.78 999.78
T&S, consumables
- 2,424.90 2,746.26 - 1,000.00 - 678.64
Indirect 60% - 1,454.94 - 27,241.76 - 600.00 - 29,296.70
Total - 3,879.84 - 72,644.70 - 1,600.00 999.78 - 77,124.76
% indirect allowed 0.60 0.07 1.00 -
Allowed indirect - 1,454.94 - 3,178.21 - 600.00 - 1,733.15
UMAN P1 EC contribution - 2,909.88 - 48,581.15 - 1,600.00 999.78 - 52,091.25
UMAN Staff 01/04/2008 31/03/2011 Garrington - 145,508.42 - 145,508.42 Adj P2 Subcontracting 31,660.34 - 31,660.34 - T&S, consumables -
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Indirect 60% - - 87,305.05 - 87,305.05 Total - - 201,153.13 - 232,813.47 % indirect allowed 0.60 0.07 1.00 - Allowed indirect - - 10,185.59 - - 10,185.59 UMAN P2 EC contribution - - 124,033.67 - 31,660.34 - - 155,694.01 CTHA Staff 01/04/2008 31/03/2011 Olofsson 33,653.24 33,653.24
Indirect 60% (20% allowance) 20,191.94 20,191.94
Total 53,845.18 53,845.18 CTHA EC contribution, 75% 40,383.89 40,383.89 ASTRON Staff 01/04/2008 31/03/2011 Garrett 58,230.14 58,230.14 Other direct 7,519.70 7,519.70
Indirect 60% (20% allowance) AIC method 49,352.00 49,352.00
Total 115,101.84 115,101.84 ASTRON EC Contribution, 75% 86,326.38 86,326.38 CSIRO Staff 01/04/2011 31/03/2012 Diamond - P3 Subcontracting - - T&S, consumables 78,924.79 78,924.79 Indirect (actual) 5,524.74 Total 78,924.79 78,924.79 Allowed indirect 5,524.74 5,524.74 CSIRO P3 EC contribution 84,449.53 - 84,449.53 CSIRO Staff 01/04/2011 31/03/2012 Diamond 52,604.45 52,604.45 P1 Subcontracting - - T&S, consumables - Indirect (actual) 3,682.31 3,682.31 Total 56,286.76 56,286.76 Allowed indirect (actual) 3,682.31 3,682.31 CSIRO P1 EC contribution 56,286.76 - 56,286.76 CSIRO Staff 01/04/2011 31/03/2012 Diamond 191,228.30 191,228.30 P2 Subcontracting - -
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T&S, consumables - Indirect (actual) 13,385.98 13,385.98 Total 204,614.28 204,614.28 Allowed indirect (actual) 13,385.98 13,385.98 CSIRO P2 EC contribution 204,614.28 - 204,614.28 PrepSKA Grand Total 01/04/2008 31/03/2011 536,444.15 1,549,734.20 174,602.35 232,334.31 2,493,115.01
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PrepSKA Periodic Report, April 2011
Table 7: EC Summary Financial Report from the FORCE website
ota
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PrepSKA Periodic Report, April 2011
5. Certificates
List of Certificates which are due for this period, in accordance with Article II.4.4 of the Grant Agreement. Beneficiary Organisation
short name
Certificate on the financial statements provided? yes / no
Any useful comment, in particular if a certificate is not provided
1 STFC No Expenditure threshold not reached 2 N W O No Expenditure threshold not reached 4 INAF No Expenditure threshold not reached 9 UMAN Yes
MU_PrepSKA2012_Audit certificate.pdf
27 CTHA No Expenditure threshold not reached A copy of each certificate on the financial statements (Form C) is included in this section, according to the table above (signed originals to be sent in parallel by post). The UMAN audit certificate on the financial statement is attached in pdf form above, and the signed originals will be sent in parallel by surface post.
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PrepSKA Periodic Report, April 2011
Appendix A: 11Feed Report , see attached pdf
11_Feed_report_270512.pdf
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PrepSKA Periodic Report, April 2011
Annex B: Callisto report, See attached pdf – front sheet reproduced here
Engineering Expertise for Space Communications
Reference: REP/1304/2774 Issue : 1.1 Date : 7 June 2012
WP 1 Investigate and report on design approaches for cryogenically cooling receiver front ends for the SKA
Dish Array
Report
Document Reference : REP/1304/2774
Issue : 1.1 Date : 07/06/2012
Contract : EPZ017755 Name Signature
Prepared by : Neil Roddis & Remi Rayet Reviewed/Approved by : S. A. Rawson
Document Reference : REP/1304/2774
Issue : 1.1
Date : 07/06/2012
Contract : EPZ017755
Copyright ©2012 Callisto Limited/Callisto France
The Copyright of this document is the property of Callisto Ltd/Callisto France s.a.r.l. It is supplied in confidence and shall not be reproduced, copied or communicated to any third party without written permission from
Callisto. All rights reserved. Callisto 12 Av.de Borde Blanche Villefranche de Lauragais F‐31290 Tel. +33 561 800 807 www.callisto‐space.com
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PrepSKA Periodic Report, April 2011
Callisto_report.pdf
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PrepSKA Periodic Report, April 2011
Appendix 3: Minex Report, see attached pdf
Minex_report_270512.pdf
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