A Minimum Variance Method for Problems in Radio Antenna Placement
Abstract
Aperture synthesis radio telescopes generate images of celestial bodies from data obtained from several radio antennas. Placement of these antennas has always been a source of interesting problems. Often, several potentially contradictory objectives like good image quality and low infra-structural cost have to be satisfied simultaneously. In this paper, we propose a general Minimum Variance Method that focuses on obtaining good images in the presence of limiting situations. We show its versatility and goodness in three different situations: (a) Placing the antennas on the ground to get a target Gaussian UV distribution (b) Staggering the construction of a telescope in the event of staggered budgets and (c) Whenever available, using the mobility of antennas to obtain a high degree of fault tolerance.
Cite
@article{arxiv.0901.4901,
title = {A Minimum Variance Method for Problems in Radio Antenna Placement},
author = {M. V. Panduranga Rao and Amrit Lal Ahuja and Srinivasan Iyengar and Sachin Lodha and Kavita Iyer and Ranu Khade and Dinesh Mehta and Balasz Nagy},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0901.4901},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
17 pages, 19 figures, A short version appears in the proceedings of The Low Frequency Radio Universe, ASP Conference Series, Vol LFRU, 2009, Eds: D.J. Saikia, Dave Green, Y.Gupta and Tiziana Venturi