By Jasper Horrell, MeerKAT Project Office, Cape Town, September 2007

A large part of the recent focus has been to develop and integrate the complete software chain for the MeerKAT prototype (XDM) dish and engineering experiments. As of the end of August 2007, the software runs end-to-end in the laboratory using actual XDM computing hardware. This includes end-to-end facility monitoring and control using both web and scripted components, antenna control software with a simulated XDM dish, the data filler and data processing software, simulated RF and DSP subsystems, and simulated environmental monitoring.

Preliminary work on XDM integration with the real DSP subsystem has already commenced and lab integration with the other subsystems started in September 2007.

The CONRAD computing collaboration with the Australians is proceeding well with the codebase maturing in a number of areas such as the synthesis code for pipelined imaging and the various monitor and control components (also used in the XDM system as described above). Recently the CONRAD computing architecture, which is expected to be used for KAT-7 and MeerKAT, has also been given attention and international review (see CONRAD).

Work continues in various areas to help in the KAT-7 and MeerKAT definitions. A particular focus at present is to determine the array configuration and unpack the science requirements in terms of engineering implications. As previously reported, the powerful array configuration design tool, known as AntConfig, is available from www.kat.ac.za.

With the large scope of work, the computing subsystem team of nine is currently looking to expand and jobs have been advertised with four positions available.