Challenges in Digital Data Backhaul networks for Square Kilometre Array radio telescope

Abstract

The Square Kilometre Array will be the world's largest and most sensitive radio telescope. To meet the technical requirements demanded by the science goals, thousands of linked radio wave receptors will be located in separate arrays in Southern Africa and in Western Australia. Combining the signals from the antennas in each region will create a telescope with a collecting area equivalent to a dish with an area of about one square kilometre. A large component of the SKA will be the communications infrastructure required to interconnect a high number of antennas and other elements of the system. The design of the Digital Data Backhaul (DDBH) Networks, for Square Kilometre Array Radio Telescope, presents several technical challenges that have never been addressed before, such as a wide range of transmission rates that can exceed an aggregated transmission rate of several Tb/s in extreme environments in Southern Africa and Australia. We will present possible transport solutions for different DDBH networks in the first phase of deployment, SKA-1, to start in 2018.