The four
RadioNet3 Joint Research Activities share the objective to stimulate new R&D activities for the existing radio infrastructures, in synergy with ALMA and the development of the SKA. They form a coherent and integrated programme aimed at providing innovative developments, supporting the scientific programmes at the
RadioNet3 telescopes and keeping the facilities state-of-the-art. Ultimately they will provide leadership towards future developments and help determine the global developments towards the SKA.
- UniBoard² will focus on the development of a generic high-performance computing platform for radio astronomy, along with the implementation of several different applications (correlator, digital receiver, aperture antenna beam former). This JRA will consolidate and build upon the experience obtained in the RadioNet-FP7 JRA UniBoard, and will create a completely re-designed platform with several innovative features, that will be ready for the next generation of astronomical instruments (especially the SKA), at the end of 2015.
- AETHER will respond to the critical demand for novel broad-band millimetre and submillimetre (terahertz) detectors, which is essential for improving the performance and fully exploiting the capabilities of the leading facilities in these wavelengths, most notably the European (sub) millimetre telescopes, such as the IRAM 30-m telescope, PdBI, APEX and ALMA.
- HILADO includes software developments to address the dramatic increase of the quality and volume of astronomical data expected to come with the advent of new facilities and advanced observational techniques. To this end new software for calibration, reduction and processing of these data is critically needed. HILADO will create optimized libraries and software components that enable high performance processing of the data from existing and new facilities (LOFAR, ALMA, e-MERLIN, EVLA, EVN), moving their scientific performance beyond the capabilities that will be delivered in their current development phases.
- DIVA will develop key technology building blocks to consolidate the role of European VLBI and European radio astronomy in general as a leading competitor with respect to developments in the USA and Asia. New breakthroughs in global VLBI science are expected, with the advent of ultra-broad-band recording systems, greatly increasing the instantaneous sensitivity. DIVA addresses the need to prototype an extension of the present recording system with high-speed samplers, thus consolidating the leading European position in the global broadband interferometry developments.
