Speaker
Description
Radio interferometry techniques have been significantly improved in recent years with the construction of more sensitive radio telescopes such as MeerKAT and the future Square Kilometre Array (SKA), but the radio frequency interference (RFI) remains one of the main challenges limiting the sensitivity and calibration process. Harmonic RFI are produced by non-linearities in electronic equipment and communication systems, often contaminating wideband observations, whose spectral behaviour and temporal evolution are not fully understood.
This study aims to characterise RFI harmonics within the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO) environment by using data science tools. We analyse the raw per-antenna voltage streams (at high time resolution) as measured by MeerKAT and SKAMPI prototype telescopes. We create a database of potential harmonics with their corresponding sources. We further provide the statistics of these harmonics and show their evolution around the MeerKAT site. This will allow us to better understand the impact of these RFIs on radio astronomy data, and can be used to support the development of automated RFI mitigation tools.
| Stream | Science or Engineering |
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