Safran to provide SKA telescopes with timing and synchronisation solution

BY MATHIEU ISIDRO (SKAO)

A Spain-based business of multinational technology company Safran has been awarded a highly technical contract to supply time distribution for the SKAO’s telescopes in Australia and South Africa.

Time distribution is a scheme where multiple sites share a precise reference time. Safran Trusted 4d is developing the final designs and providing the hardware to the SKAO. Using White Rabbit (WR) technology first developed by CERN will allow the design to distribute timing information over long distances with sub-nanosecond accuracy – a perfect solution for the SKA telescopes, for which the achievement of the science cases requires synchronising signals reaching multiple antennas with a time accuracy better than two nanoseconds.

The system’s master unit located in the correlator buildings delivers a “ping” each second respectively to each of the SKA-Mid dishes, and SKA-Low’s remote processing facilities (RPFs), which are located along the telescope’s spiral arms in shielded containers. This ping travels along the optical fibres – up to 175 km in the case of the SKA-Mid telescope in South Africa and 74 km for the SKA-Low telescope in Australia – and the WR solution compensates for any distortions in the fibre due to temperature changes, wind, or other environmental effects along the way. The timing provided is then used to stamp the digitised data produced at each dish and RPF with an accurate time, so the data can be synchronised precisely, an essential part of the array’s functionality.

“Safran’s solution for the SKA telescopes is taking the White Rabbit technology to the next level, and probably represents the first time it is used on such distances,” said Ben Lewis, SKA-Mid senior project manager.