Digital Instrumentation for the Radio Astronomy Community

几十年来，射电天文学为宇宙打开了新的和意想不到的窗口，并继续提供宇宙许多方面的最确定的观点。 许多新的和令人兴奋的仪器和望远镜的建设正在进行或计划在不久的将来。 该提案的研究人员坚定地致力于以最低的成本和重复劳动向尽可能广泛的用户群体提供最先进的射电天文学仪器。 他们开创了许多天文学家需要的共同元素的开源设计，并在这样做的过程中，协同社区精神和团队努力，超出了预期，并有助于推动当前令人兴奋的射电天文学研究的激增。 在这个项目中，他们将继续努力，开发新一代的通用电子硬件，这是许多射电仪器的核心。CASPER合作代表了这一建议，在向更广泛的射电天文学界提供开源硬件和软件方面取得了非常成功，导致射电天文仪器开发在大学，国家天文台，和国际水平。在过去的十年里，相关的科学回报是巨大的。该提案将继续开展这项工作，通过一些新的举措提供新一代数字硬件，包括开发世界各地天文台使用的下一代ROACH处理器板，该项目具有广泛的广泛影响，能够以降低成本的方式提高各种射电天文仪器的性能。 此外，学生的参与度很高，社区对设计实践的传播也很广泛，并且有明确的承诺来促进社区合作，分享推进射频仪器技术发展的兴奋之情。该项目的资金由NSF天文科学部通过其先进技术和仪器计划提供。

Radio astronomy has opened up new and unexpected windows on the cosmos for many decades now, and continues to provide the most definitive views of many aspects of the universe. Construction of many new and exciting instruments and telescopes is underway or planned for the near future. The investigators on this proposal have a strong commitment to making cutting-edge radio astronomy instrumentation available to the broadest possible user community at minimal cost and duplication of effort. They have pioneered open-source design of the common elements that many astronomers need, and in so doing have synergized a community spirit and team effort that have gone beyond expectations and helped to fuel the current surge of exciting radio astronomy research. In this project, they will continue that effort with a new generation of the general-purpose electronic hardware that lies at the heart of many radio instruments.The CASPER collaboration represented by this proposal has been extremely successful in delivering open source hardware and software to the wider radio astronomy community, leading to a resurgence in radio astronomy instrumentation development at the university, national observatory, and international level. The associated science return in the last decade has been immense. This proposal would continue this work with delivery of a new generation of digital hardware through a number of new initiatives, including development of the next-generation ROACH processor board used of the kind used at observatories worldwide.This project has wide-ranging broader impacts in enabling improved performance at reduced cost of a wide range of radio astronomical instrumentation. In addition, student involvement is strong, community dissemination of design practices is broad, and there is a clear commitment to stimulation of community cooperation and sharing the excitement of advancing the state of the art of radiofrequency instrumentation.Funding for this project is being provided by NSF's Division of Astronomical Sciences through its Advanced Technologies and Instrumentation program.