SKA and tech development in SA

The SKA spurns technology that will change the computing world in South Africa

It amazes me that the population at large can develop such narrow view about new developments. Take the US - there is a large contingent of the population that is of the opinion that the space program is an utter waste of money. Yet they forget about the benefits that mankind has reaped from the program ranging from medicines & a better understanding of diseases to the development of new materials and technologies that are have already become part of our daily life.

A few years ago South Africa embarked on a bid to host the Square Kilometer Array (SKA), the world’s largest electron telescope. The bid has been narrowed down to South Africa and Australia. The question which is now being asked is “if we don’t get it would the investment have been worthwhile?” 

The opinion of the world foremost scientist is that even if South Africa does not get the green light in 2012, the technology and expertise that would have accrued to the country would outstrip in value many times than the Rands and cents invested.

At a meeting of leading South African and International Astronomers earlier this year, Prof John Womersley of the Science and Technical facilities Council in the UK said that 20 – 30 % of astronomy is about understanding the universe - the rest is about training people and that is there where South Africa will benefit.

Dr Bernie Fanaroff, who leads the SKA project, explained that telescopes look at very weak signals and need to push the limits of technology. This often produces new technologies which later will give rise to innovations and products which will be commercialized.

The SKA project supports many students at undergraduate, graduate and post graduate levels – and gives them great exposure to international groups working on various aspects of the SKA. One of the many examples is the collaboration between the MeerKAT Digital Backend (DBE) team and the Center for Astronomy Signal Processing and Electronics Research (CASPER) at the University of California (UC), Berkeley.

The CASPER team works closely with the Radio Astronomy Laboratory (RAL) in the Department of Astronomy at UC, Berkeley, who are building the Allen Telescope Array (ATA). This contact with the ATA project and other telescope projects around the world, including MeerKAT, ensures that CASPER continues to work on important projects that are of broad interest to digital back-end designers working on current and future radio telescopes.

The present generation iBOB board from CASPER, and the next-generation hardware ROACH (Reconfigurable Open Architecture Computing Hardware), are both designed specifically for digital processing of signals in radio telescopes.

ROACH, currently under development through a collaboration of MeerKAT, CASPER and the NRAO (National Radio Astronomy Observatory in the USA), is set to deliver more than half a Teraflop of processing power and up to four bidirectional 10 Gbit communication links. ROACH will provide the primary building block for digital signal processing systems in numerous next generation radio telescopes.

The Minister of Science and Technology Nalady Pandor said at a recent student conference that the SKA represents an unprecedented opportunity for the development of very high level scientific and technological skills and expertise in Africa; skills which will be crucial in the next ten to twenty years in the global knowledge economy.

These technologies include very fast grid computing; very fast data transport; data storage; wireless engineering; digital electronics; image processing; and software development, amongst others. Hosting the SKA would make Africa a world centre of physics, astronomy and high tech engineering thus dramatically strengthening Africa’s capacity to innovate in harmony with its industries and universities.

I see the SKA as a great driver towards turning South Africa into a knowledge economy. Do you?

SKA and tech development in SA