1. Super telescope, super opportunities:
British business and the
Square Kilometre Array (SKA)
1
2. Hosted by:
Jim Thompson
ICT Sector Specialist, UKTI Australia
Svetozar Kovacevic
UK Science and Innovation Network
Guest Presenter:
John Humphreys
Chair, Australasian SKA & Big Data
Industry Consortium
4. Square Kilometre Array
World’s largest, most sensitive radio telescope
Thousands of linked dishes/antennas across
Australia, NZ and Southern Africa
Combined collecting area of 1 km2 (1 million m2)
Funded by consortium of 10 countries,
est. cost over £1b
5. Two Continents, One Telescope
South Africa
Namibia
Botswana
Zambia
Mozambique
Kenya
Ghana
Madagascar
Mauritius
Australia
New Zealand
8. Scale and Power
Over 900 Petabytes data collected by SKA in a
single day: 15 million 64 GB iPods
Over 80,000 km optical fibre required:
enough to wrap around the earth twice
Compared to global internet traffic, dishes will
produce 10× more, aperture arrays over 100× more
Supercomputer requirements: 1018 operations per
second, equivalent to the number of stars in 3m
Milky Way galaxies; processing power of 100m PCs
9. Project Timeline
2013
Request for proposals
Proposal responses
Proposal evaluation
Cost ceiling established
Design consortia start
Preliminary design review
Prototype systems deployed
Critical design review
Seek SKA1 funding
Develop SKAO governance
SKA1 construction approved
Tender & procure construction
SKA1 construction
Detailed design of SKA2
SKA1 early science
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
14. Australasian SKA & Big Data
Industry Consortium
Representative only + other companies
£11.4m
£0.85m
15. ASKAIC’s Goals
• Continue to support ANZ Governments in the
Pre-Construction Phase of the SKA
• Maximise the non-astronomy industry opportunities from SKA,
including Big Data, Energy Efficiency etc.
• Foster regional research/industry connections through SKA and
broader industry engagements
• Provide an industry-led catalyst for informing national strategy
regarding Big Data
• Develop SKA industry consortia activity; focus on UK/ANZ as
exemplar for future industry consortia-building by stakeholder nations
17. Work Packages for Industry
Dishes
Telescope
Manager
Central
Signal
Processor
Synchronisation
and Timing
Phased Array
Feeds
Low Frequency
Aperture Array
Science Data
Processor
Power
Wide Band
Single Pixel
Feeds
Mid Frequency
Aperture Array
Signal and
Data Transport
Site and
Infrastructure
18. Work Packages for Industry: UK Lead
Work Package
Lead
Consortia Members
Science Data
Processor
University of
Cambridge
University of Cambridge
CSIRO Astronomy & Space Science
ASTRON Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy
SKA South Africa
ICRAR
SDP-NZ
STFC
University of Manchester
MPIfR Bonn
Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía-CSIC
ICCS, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
University of Melbourne
CADC/cyberSKA
University of Oxford
Software and
computing
19. Work Packages for Industry: UK Lead
Work Package
Lead
Consortia Members
Signal and Data
Transport
University of
Manchester
University of Manchester
CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science
Instituto de Telecomunicações
Joint Institute for VLBI in Europe (JIVE)
ASTRON Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy
SKA South Africa
University of Granada
The SKA
telecomms network
Synchronisation
and Timing
20. Work Packages for Industry: Others
Work Package
Lead
Consortia Members
Dishes
CSIRO
CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science
Penticton, NRC, HIA, DRAO & University of Calgary
NAOC, JLRAT
ASTRON
SKA South Africa
INAF
Chalmers University & Onsala Observatory
University of Manchester
Phased Array
Feeds
Wide Band
Single Pixel
Feeds
Discussions:
EMSS, MMS, BAE Systems (South Africa)
CETC54/JLRAT (China)
Airborne Composites (ASTRON, NL)
Finmeccanica (INAF, Italy)
Université de Bordeaux 1, Observatoire de Paris (France)
Low Noise Factory, Omnisys Instruments AB (Sweden)
Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, GE (Australia)
Selex-Galileo (UK)
21. Work Packages for Industry: Others
Work Package
Lead
Consortia Members
Low Frequency
Aperture Array
ASTRON
ASTRON Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy
ICRAR
INAF-IRA
JIVE
Observatoire de Paris
Raman Research Institute (RRI)
Université de Bordeaux 1 (UB1)
University of Cambridge
University of Malta
University of Manchester
University of Oxford
Mid Frequency
Aperture Array
22. Work Packages for Industry: Others
Work Package
Lead
Consortia Members
Central Signal
Processor
NRC
National Research Council of Canada (NRC)
Canadian SKA Industry Consortium (IBM Canada, others)
University of Alberta
University of Calgary
Work Package
Lead
Consortia Members
Telescope
Manager
NCRA-TIFR
National Centre for Radio Astrophysics - Tata
Institute of Fundamental Research (NCRA-TIFR)
25. Building the UK-ANZ Relationship
• Long-standing collegiate relationship
between UK SKA Industry Consortium &
ASKAIC
SKA
• Informal collaborative discussions have
already commenced between UK-ANZ
• Three countries understand common issues
and opportunities
• Focus extending beyond SKA to Big Data &
other non-astronomy fields
26. Non-Astronomy Opportunities
Big Data: cloud computing, processing, transport, storage
Communications: sensor networks, NBN
Energy efficiency: renewables, reliability, heat control
Construction: remote location, infrastructure, maintenance
Manufacturing: material, design and systems engineering
Skill: training and expertise
27. Possible Next Steps
• Tripartite demonstration Big Data project
• eg. Dome project in the Netherlands
• UK Delegation to ANZ – 2013/2014
• Leverage off SKA relationships to build a stronger UK & ANZ
industry alliance
• Establish annual program of UK & ANZ industry
collaboration?
• Collective drive to enhance industry input to SKA
Organisation & Manchester HQ
28. Australia/NZ
UK
John Humphreys
Nigel Rix
Chair
johnh@globalinnovation.com.au
Director of Electronics
nigel.rix@espktn.org
Jim Thompson
Louis Barson
ICT Sector Lead
jim.thompson@fco.gov.uk
Science and Innovation Unit
louis.barson@ukti.gsi.gov.uk
Svetozar Kovacevic
Prof. Richard Schilizzi
Australian Representative
svetozar.kovacevic@fco.gov.uk
SKA Group
richard.schilizzi@manchester.ac.uk
Prof. John Bancroft
Simon Berry
Head of Project Devt Asia Pacific
john.bancroft@stfc.ac.uk
Programmes Directorate
Simon.Berry@stfc.ac.uk
29. How can UKTI help you?
• Provide grants to help you research the market
through our Export Market Research Scheme
(EMRS)
• Conduct market research & contact finding for
you through our Overseas Market Information
Service (OMIS)
• Help you attend Exhibitions through our
Tradeshow Access Programme (TAP)
• Help you successfully visit the market as part of a
Trade Mission through our Visit Scheme (MVS)
30. Next Steps
If you are interested in learning
more about opportunities here then
get in touch with your local UKTI
International Trade Adviser. You
can find your local ITA through our
website www.ukti.gov.uk or
contact
jim.thompson@fco.gov.uk
