The Advanced Technology ALMA Correlator (ATAC), the centerpiece of WSU’s new era, has just passed its Preliminary Design Review (PDR). This means that the observatory’s new brain, which will be able to analyze more data from the antenna receivers, is going from strength to strength for the future of ALMA.
While Band 2 had previously had a PDR, aligned to WSU specifications (wideband sensitivity upgrade), the ATAC is the first component that is unique to WSU and designed from the ground up for its requirements.
“These are the first critical projects for the basic implementation of WSU, and the fact that they have passed their corresponding review means that the design is maturing and has entered the critical phase,” says Álvaro González, our Deputy Director of Development.
Landing these requirements was by no means an easy job. That much is known to the JAO Development Team, the System Engineers group and members of the project teams at AUI/NRAO and the National Research Council of Canada (NRC). A dedicated working group began refining the initial requirements after a Second Generation Correlator conference in Charlottesville in February 2022 and went through several iterations in order to meet the System Technical Requirements Reviews before delivering their preliminary design.
“This is the first PDR of a development project initiated to implement WSU. So it is done knowing that there are some uncertainties from other subsystems that have not yet been able to go through their PDR,” says Juande Santander, our JAO Development System Engineer.
Juande assures that this work with ATAC will be useful as a template for the next preliminary reviews. “We have done all the preparations in advance of how the operation is going to be. We have the right scalpels, everything we need to make this a functional brain and be able to work within the new system for WSU,” says Juande.
Over nearly 20 days, the review panel of external ALMA experts and observers provided comments and questions about the documentation, which were actively responded to and processed by the ATAC team. This process culminated in a face-to-face meeting at the NRAO’s North American ALMA Science Center (NAASC) in Charlottesville.
With their approval, the project is ready to proceed to the detailed design phase. This is confirmed by Roberto Price, our Systems Engineer, who on this occasion was the Review Technical Secretary for the ATAC review: “Such a large project presents significant challenges. The preparation of this PDR was excellent, providing high quality documentation. The team is very strong technically and they have done an outstanding job.”
If the ATAC is the new brain of ALMA, its skull also had to be designed. Therefore, in parallel, the preliminary review of the OSF Correlator Room (OCRO), a computer room that has the right environment for the operation of the correlator and that will be located not in the AOS but in the OSF, as its name suggests, was carried out.
There it was Miroslav Vulinovic -who until 2018 was our IMG Area Supervisor-, who on this occasion was Chair of the OCRO PDR. Miroslav explained that “we delivered our report and gave recommendations, but the team members did a super good job”.
In another year the Critical Design Reviews (CDR) of the two projects, plus that of the hardware connecting the antennas to the ATAC at OCRO, will come in. Shortly thereafter, the first WSU instruments will start arriving for installation at the ALMA site.
“This is a very important step in implementing the WSU as we are closer to the final design of fundamental instruments for the future of ALMA,” Álvaro concludes.
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Amazing and incredible collaborative achievements! Congrats each and everyone!!
It was a great team effort, thanks to everyone involved!