Python implementation and validation of an Optimization Method for Interferometric Antenna Arrays.

CABRAL, LUCA; MARIANO FERNÁNDEZ CORAZZA; GANCIO, GUILLERMO; BENAGLIA, PAULA

Oberá

Conferencia; XX REUNIÓN DE TRABAJO EN PROCESAMIENTO DE LA INFORMACIÓN Y CONTROL; 2023

Facultad de Ingeniería (FI) Universidad Nacional de Misiones (UNaM)

A main task to solve while designing a radio interferometeris the location of the antenna-elements, a problemthat defines the interferometer response. The solution determineswhich points of the Fourier plane (or uv plane) will be sampled,together with their density. These characteristics are extremelyimportant because the antenna locations, in turn, define thesynthesized beam or point spread function (PSF) of the wholeinstrument. An inadequate array configuration implies an illconstructedsynthesized beam. Consequences of inadequate arraysare for example the need to delete measures over a range ofspatial frequencies due to low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), or, atthe data reduction stage, to degrade spatial resolution in orderto get a cleaner image. In this work, we implement a method tooptimize the antenna locations, starting with an initial randomconfiguration and a desired or objective sample density function,taking into account if there are terrain constraints.