Pathfinders and precursors for the SKA

Abstract

I will discuss pathfinding activities in science, technology development and cyber-infrastructure that are relevant to the Square Kilometre Array. Technology development includes work on dish antennas, wideband dipole arrays, wideband feed antennas, and widefield phased array feeds. Science applications include time-domain exploration, deep continuum imaging, and high-rate surveys. The implied data volumes are growing exponentially and need to be matched with data management and mining systems.