RAPID collaboration
We are closely collaborating with MIT Haystack observatory to make early use of SKA technology low frequency aperture array elements, which have been designed here. This is a four year project leading to relatively short term science results.
RAPID is a Radio Array of Portable Interferometric Detectors. It is for large signal science e.g. investigating solar radio emission, the Galactic synchrotron background, and ultra-high energy cosmic rays via airshower emission and ionospheric phenomena. It is an array of 50-100 small, low-gain broadband antennas operating below 500 MHz.
The exciting aspect of RAPID is that it can operate without any cabling between the antennas to a central location! It can be shipped almost anywhere, deployed and physically reconfigured quickly and easily with zero site infrastructure. Uniquely, RAPID has the ability to locate and configure an imaging radio interferometer array which is highly customized to the specific science goals of the field campaign, thereby supporting science investigations that previously have not been feasible.
During observations, the system stores signal voltage data at each antenna, off loads the data at a conventional processing facility: all the image processing is performed offline at the home institutions of investigators, thus simplifying field operations and reducing deployed equipment complexity. RAPID is inherently multidisciplinary, involving astronomy, geospace science and physics, reflecting the fundamental and versatile nature of the measurements RAPID can make.
