Author: Pretorius, P.J.
Paper Title Page
TUPDP069 AVN Radio Telescope Conversion Software Systems 661
 
  • R.L. Schwartz, R.E. Ebrahim, P.J. Pretorius
    SARAO, Cape Town, South Africa
  
  The African VLBI Net­work (AVN) is a pro­posed net­work of Radio Tele­scopes in­volv­ing 8 part­ner coun­tries across the African con­ti­nent. The AVN pro­ject aims to con­vert re­dun­dant satel­lite data com­mu­ni­ca­tions ground sta­tions, where vi­able, to Radio Tele­scopes. One of the main ob­jec­tives of AVN is human cap­i­tal de­vel­op­ment in Sci­ence, En­gi­neer­ing, Tech­nol­ogy and Math­e­mat­ics (STEM) with re­gards to radio as­tron­omy in SKA (Square Kilo­me­ter Array) African Part­ner coun­tries. This paper will out­line the soft­ware sys­tems used for con­trol and mon­i­tor­ing of a sin­gle radio tele­scope. The con­trol and mon­i­tor­ing soft­ware con­sists of the User In­ter­face, An­tenna Con­trol Sys­tem, Re­ceiver Con­trol Sys­tem and mon­i­tor­ing of all pro­pri­etary and off-the-shelf (OTS) com­po­nents. All pro­pri­etary and OTS in­ter­faces are con­verted to the open pro­to­col (KATCP).  
poster icon Poster TUPDP069 [10.698 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-TUPDP069  
About • Received ※ 20 September 2023 — Revised ※ 09 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 13 October 2023 — Issued ※ 28 October 2023
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TUSDSC06 Components of a Scale Training Telescope for Radio Astronomy Training 933
 
  • A.C. Linde, X.P. Baloyi, P. Dube, J.L. Lekganyane, AM. Lethole, V. Mlipha, P.J. Pretorius, US. Silere, S.S. Sithole
    SARAO, Cape Town, South Africa
  
  To es­tab­lish the en­gi­neer­ing and sci­ence back­ground of radio as­tron­omy in SKA African part­ner coun­tries, a need was iden­ti­fied to de­velop a train­ing tele­scope which would serve as a ve­hi­cle for demon­strat­ing the prin­ci­ples. The Scale Train­ing Tele­scope (STT) will be used as an in­ter­ac­tive teach­ing tool for the ba­sics of an­tenna struc­ture and an­tenna con­trol, both in the de­sign, as­sem­bly and op­er­a­tion of the radio an­tenna. The an­tenna aims to work as closely to a real radio tele­scope an­tenna as pos­si­ble. The STT al­lows stu­dents at var­i­ous aca­d­e­mic lev­els in dif­fer­ent ed­u­ca­tional in­sti­tu­tions the abil­ity to ac­cess an an­tenna de­sign that can be as­sem­bled and op­er­ated by the stu­dents. The paper will de­scribe the me­chan­i­cal, elec­tri­cal and soft­ware el­e­ments of the STT. The me­chan­i­cal el­e­ments range from the struc­tural base to the ro­tat­ing dish of the radio tele­scope an­tenna. The elec­tri­cal el­e­ments in­cor­po­rate the electro­mechan­i­cal com­po­nents used to move the an­tenna as well as the wiring and pow­er­ing of the an­tenna. The soft­ware is used to con­trol the an­tenna sys­tem as well as col­lect, process and vi­su­alise the re­sult­ing data. A soft­ware-based user in­ter­face will allow the stu­dents to con­trol and mon­i­tor the an­tenna sys­tem. The PLC-based (Pro­gram­ma­ble Logic Con­troller) con­trol sys­tem fa­cil­i­tates the mo­tion con­trol of the an­tenna, in both the az­imuth and el­e­va­tion axes.  
poster icon Poster TUSDSC06 [0.760 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-TUSDSC06  
About • Received ※ 06 October 2023 — Revised ※ 09 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 29 November 2023 — Issued ※ 09 December 2023
Cite • reference for this paper using ※ BibTeX, ※ LaTeX, ※ Text/Word, ※ RIS, ※ EndNote (xml)