Low-cost, Low-loss, Ultra-wideband Compact Feed for Interferometric Radio Telescopes

TL;DR

This paper introduces a low-cost, compact, ultra-wideband feed design for interferometric radio telescopes, optimized for deep dishes, with high efficiency and low system temperature, suitable for large-scale scientific arrays.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel, inexpensive, and easily manufacturable feed design that maintains performance across a wide frequency band for deep-dish interferometric arrays.

Findings

Achieved system temperature below 30 K over 0.3-1.5 GHz band.

Maintained aperture efficiency between 0.4 and 0.6.

Cost less than $75 USD per feed in large-scale production.

Abstract

We have developed, built, and tested a new feed design for interferometric radio telescopes with "large-$N$, small-$D$" designs. Those arrays require low-cost and low-complexity feeds for mass production on reasonable timescales and budgets, and also require those feeds to be compact to minimize obstruction of the dishes, along with having ultra wide bands of operation for most current and future science goals. The feed presented in this paper modifies the exponentially tapered slot antenna (Vivaldi) and quad-ridged flared horn antenna designs by having an oversized backshort, a novel method of maintaining a small size that is well-suited for deeper dishes ($f/D\leq 0.25$). It is made of laser cut aluminum and printed circuit boards, such that it is inexpensive ($\lesssim$ 75 USD per feed in large-scale production) and quick to build; it has a 5:1 frequency ratio, and its size is approximately a third of its longest operating wavelength. We present the science and engineering constraints that went into design decisions, the development and optimization process, and the simulated performance. A version of this feed design was optimized and built for the Canadian Hydrogen Observatory and Radio-transient Detector (CHORD) prototypes. When simulated on CHORD's very deep dishes ($f/D=0.21$) and with CHORD's custom first stage amplifiers, the on-sky system temperature $T_\mathrm{sys}$ of the complete receiving system from dish to digitizer remains below 30 K over most of the 0.3-1.5 GHz band, and maintains an aperture efficiency $\eta_\mathrm{A}$ between 0.4 and 0.6. The entire receiving chain operates at ambient temperature. The feed is designed to slightly under-illuminate the CHORD dishes, in order to minimize coupling between array elements and spillover.