MeerKAT Engineering Office in Cape Town

Close to 100 young scientists and engineers are working on the MeerKAT project. Based at the engineering office in Cape Town, and at universities and technology companies across South Africa and Africa, these researchers interact closely with SKA teams around the world. In collaboration with South African industry and universities, and collaborating with global institutions, the South African team has developed technologies and systems for the MeerKAT telescope, including innovative composite telescope dishes and cutting-edge signal processing hardware and algorithms. These photographs were taken by Nick van der Leek during March 2011.

Hi-res JPG 1.90 MB | Medium JPG 96 KB Commissioning scientists (fltr) Nadeem Ozeer, Maik Wolleben and Siphelele Blose in the MeerKAT control room at the Cape Town-based MeerKAT engineering office.	Hi-res JPG 1.32 MB | Medium JPG 114 KB Jasper Horrell, science processing sub-system manager on the MeerKAT project, with the real-time virtual sky display in the control room at the Cape Town MeerKAT project office.	Hi-res JPG 7.76 MB | Medium JPG 78 KB Francois Kapp, digital back-end sub-systems manager on the MeerKAT project, studying the newly-developed reconfigurable open architecture computing hardware board – ROACH-2.

Hi-res JPG 1.75 MB | Medium JPG 121 KB The MeerKAT engineering office in Cape Town South Africa boasts state-of-the art equipment and laboratories - and many bright young minds eager to contribute to this history-making science adventure. Ludwig Schwardt, Simon Cross, Simon Ratcliffe, Tshakule Nemalili and Mattieu de Villiers are just five of the close to 80 young engineers employed here.	Hi-res JPG 2.79 MB | Medium JPG 205 KB The ROACH board is a primary building block for digital signal processing systems in many next-generation radio telescopes. It is a cutting-edge innovation that enables highly specialised and superfast computing. Designed and produced in South Africa, about 300 of these ROACH boards are already in use at high-tech facilities around the globe. The prototypes of a much faster and more powerful board – ROACH-2 – have now been manufactured.	Hi-res JPG 1.84 MB | Medium JPG 115 KB Paul Swart, Roufurd Julie and Obert Toruvanda with some of the hardware in the digital back-end laboratory at the Cape Town MeerKAT engineering office.