Dr. Grant Hampson

[Dr. Grant Hampson @GrantHampson]

Luca Stringhetti joined the PI#24 kick off meeting with cake! Great discussions on all things SKA past, present and future. We shared success stories, and areas of improvement (risks, priorities and planning.) Also talked about the @CSIRO low frequency VLBI opportunity with @SKAO

[Dr. Grant Hampson @GrantHampson]

A huge week for the @CSIRO Perentie team holding the @SKAO LOW AA1 Correlator and Beamformer Factory Acceptance Test including 37 construction docs and 38 test cases. Five in person reviewers! Not your standard FAT; lots of learning for all, like they say “practice makes perfect”

[Dr. Grant Hampson @GrantHampson]

Always proud of the @CSIRO Perentie & PST team achievements & work, especially at the @SKAO PI#22 Demo. A great display showing the integration of LOW CBF & PST products. What effort & collaboration can achieve! Progress doesn’t come easy, it is earnt. Today we share the success!

[Dr. Grant Hampson @GrantHampson]

Only half the @CSIRO Perentie team could make it to a belated PI#20 cake - which means we get twice the cake! The catch phrase for @SKAO PI#20 is “Momentus”, the plan is full: correlator delay tracking, AA0.5 Factory Acceptance Test, PST beamformer revival and a RFI blanking plan

[Dr. Grant Hampson @GrantHampson]

The @CSIRO Perentie team have done it! The first AA0.5 @SKAO LOW Correlator and Beamformer system has been installed in the System Integration and Test Facility (SITF) ready for TOPIC verification. Thank you to the EOC staff Lahiru, Felipe and Cameron for their all round support.

[Dr. Grant Hampson @GrantHampson]

Great to have Luca, Robert and Maria-Grazia from @SKAO in the @CSIRO LOW PSI discussing the upcoming Factory Acceptance Testing of the AA0.5 Correlator. We showed them a 6 substation visibility matrix resulting from 2 independent RF noise sources (1,2,5 & 3,4,6) input into a TPM!

[Dr. Grant Hampson @GrantHampson]

And just like that @SKAO PI#19 starts with a chocolate mud cake! Many “incredible” things are planned; end-to-end signal chain, realtime delay polynomial updates, Factor Acceptance Testing, and control system integration. Its going to be an exciting and productive three months!

[Dr. Grant Hampson @GrantHampson]

We’ve done it - PI#18 is complete! The Perentie team gave 9 solid @SKAO system demonstrations on a wide variety of topics. Awesome effort everyone - as always it’s not an easy road, but your tenacity shines through to overcome the twists in the road to success. Thank you everyone

[Dr. Grant Hampson @GrantHampson]

It was inspiring to see Joe, Ant and Mita in the @SKAO LOW PSI. The entire Perentie team (9 @CSIRO engineers) provided an hour long demo of whats under the hood of the Correlator, in terms of hardware, firmware & software. Always great to get a different viewpoint and questions!

[Dr. Grant Hampson @GrantHampson]

It was all smiles at the @SKAO Low Correlator and Beamformer Quality Assurance Audit, even after 10hours! We passed😀Thank you to Job, Monique, Bartosz and Allison for conductiong a very thorough audit, listening to feedback, answering questions & offering advice for improvement.

[Dr. Grant Hampson @GrantHampson]

It’s a “super” exciting day worthy of cake - the @SKAO Low Correlator is producing its first AA0.5 visibilities! The Perentie model produces 6-stations of test data and is processed in a @XilinxInc Alveo. Looking forward to enabling Tango and integration into the signal chain.

[Dr. Grant Hampson @GrantHampson]

Wow its been 3.25 years since my last PI meeting in Manchester. The weather inspired us with sunshine and snow, so great to be back in the team of teams. We had 12 SAFe meetings & 18 team meetings. A big thank you to @SKA_DG for sharing your office and trusting team Perentie!

[Dr. Grant Hampson @GrantHampson]

Innovation is alive at the @SKAO in PI#17 with a dozen 5-minute lightning talks given last night. Thank you Guillaume, Andrew and David for your valuable team Perentie contributions. Congratulations Andrew for winning the Best Learning Experience award!

[Dr. Grant Hampson @GrantHampson]

Last week Sophia Chiang gave an excellent summary of her work on the Continuous Integration (CI) test automation for the @SKAO LOW Correlator and Beamformer. She is studying engineering at @UniMelb and just completed a 3 month internship at @CSIRO Thank you for your contributions

[Dr. Grant Hampson @GrantHampson]

@snehal_v @CSIRO @SKAO Indeed true. We all picked up many 'tidbits' that help our understanding along much further.

[Dr. Grant Hampson @GrantHampson]

4 teams in the @CSIRO Low PSI last week - Perentie, Pulsar Timing, Cream and Viola, as well as Sonja from @SKAO. Many new connections made, a few laughs, greater understanding of each other, and working towards combining all the jigsaw pieces together. Wish we had another week!

[Dr. Grant Hampson @GrantHampson]

It was really buzzing in the @CSIRO Low PSI last week, nothing like a rack full of hardware, a few bugs, and the roar of fans to get people talking. Great to see so many conversations - making it real, making it work. Thanks everyone for coming and making the workshop a success!

[Dr. Grant Hampson @GrantHampson]

How could you have never been to the @SKAO Low PSI? Welcome Kate Callaghan, Mita Brierley & Carmel Hartman. @KateKatiekoo is the Space & Astronomy Chief Operating Officer & Mita the @CSIRO SKA Program Leader. Carmel has ordered all the equipment for the past 15 years! Come again!

[Dr. Grant Hampson @GrantHampson]

Great to have Nick Rees from @SKAO here to kick off PI#17 with chocolate cake (for the soul). Lots of great features planned for the coming 3 months: producing our first visibilities, using the SKA control system, completing the requirements review, all on top of summer holidays!

[Dr. Grant Hampson @GrantHampson]

Great to see the @SKA_DG at the @SKAO Low Prototype System Integration facility learning about the @XilinxInc Alveo. Here David Humphrey explains the AA0.5 Correlator signal processing chain and how it integrates with the Station Beamformer & Science Data Processor early 2023