SARAO, Cape Town, South Africa
The 64-antenna MeerKAT interferometric radio telescope is a precursor to the SKA which will host hundreds of receptor dishes with a collecting area of 1 sq km. During the pre-construction phase of the SKA1 MID, the SKA DSH Consortium plans to build, integrate and qualify an SKA1 MID DSH Qualification Model (SDQM) against MeerKAT. Before the system level qualification testing can start on the SDQM, the qualified Dish sub-elements have to be integrated onto the SDQM and set to work. The SKA MPI DISH, a prototype SKA dish funded by the Max Planck Institute, will be used for early verification of the hardware and the control system. This prototype dish uses the TANGO framework for monitoring and control while MeerKAT uses the Karoo Array Telescope Control Protocol (KATCP). To aid the integration of the SKA MPI DSH, the MeerKAT Control and Monitoring (CAM) subsystem has been upgraded by incorporating a translation layer and a specialized SKA antenna proxy that will enable CAM to monitor and command the SKA dish as if it were a MeerKAT antenna.
