LOFAR project

1
LOFAR project

• Astroparticle Physics workshop
• 26 April 2004

2
LOFAR concept

• Combine advances in enabling IT
• inexpensive environmental sensors 10.000s of
  sensors
• wide area optical broadband networks customGigaP
  ort/Géant
• high performance computing IBM BlueGene/L
• to make a shared aperture multi-telescope
• but also
• to sense and interpret the environment
• in innovative ways

System spec driver
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LOFAR Sensors

• Sensor type Applications
• HF-antenna astrophysics
• astro-particle physics
• VHF-antenna cosmology, early Universe
• solar effects on Earth, space weather .
• Geophones ground subsidence .
• gas/oil extraction
• Weather micro-climate prediction
• precision agriculture
• wind energy .
• Water precision agriculture
• habitat management
• public safety
• Infra-sound atmospheric turbulence
• meteors, explosions, sonic booms

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LOFAR Phase 1

• - Radio telescope
• - Seismic imager
• - Precision weather
• for agriculture,
• wind energy

Integrate LOFAR network into regional fibre
network, sharing costs with schools, health
centres etc.
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Radio Telescope Specifications

• Frequency range
• 20 80 MHz, 120 240 MHz
• Angular resolution
• few 10 arcsec
• Sensitivity
• 100x previous instruments at these frequencies
• Shared aperture multi-telescope
• up to 8 independent telescopes
• plus geophone, weather etc arrays
• operated from remote Science Operations Centers
• similar to LHC tier-1 centers

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One day in the life ofLOFAR, the radio telescope

Telescope nr.
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Challenges

• Data rate
• 15 Tbits / sec total data generated
  (increasing later)
• 330 Gbits / sec input data rate to central
  processor
• 1 Gbit / sec to distributed Science
  Operations Centres
• Computational resources
• 34 TFLOP/s in custom co-processor (IBM BG/L)
• 500 TBytes on-line temporary storage
• Calibration
• adaptive multi-patch all-sky phase correction
• 10 sec duty cycle

8
IBM BlueGene/L

• IBM
• 1st research machine on road to
  multi-peta-FLOP/s
• 3 BG/L machines under construction LLNL, LOFAR,
  IBM Research
• numbers 1-10 of Top-500 supercomputers in one
  machine (LLNL)
• SOC technology, standard components for
  reliability
• dual PowerPC 440 chips per node with 700 MHz
  clock
• scalability
• to many times 100.000 nodes
• low power, air cooled
• 20W per node

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IBM BlueGene/L

• LOFAR
• BG/L is our 1st non-custom central processor
• total CPU power is interesting (34 TFLOP/s)
  and scalable
• component failure rate one every 3 months, DRAM
  dominated
• BG/L is embedded co-processor in LINUX cluster
• stripped down LINUX kernal on-chip
• general purpose capability allows complex
  modelling on-line, real time
• efficient for complex arithmetic, streaming
  applications
• 330 Gb/s input data rate initially 768 Gb/s max
• low power
• 150 kW for LOFAR ( 6k nodes )
• scalable beyond LOFAR to SKA requirements

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Tier-0 computing LHC, LOFARin 2006
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LOFAR with Bsik financing
Central core - plus - 45 stations 150 km max
baseline
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Mid-LOFAR would extend into Lower
Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein, Northrhein-Westphalen
Max-LOFAR would have stations from Cambridge
UK to Potsdam DE, from Nançay FR to Växjö SE
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Post-2005 JIVE LOFAR data processing centre
30 Gbps 2 Tbps
LOFAR, the Sensor Network is under consideration
as FP7 Technology Platform
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LOFAR project timeline

• PDR in June/Oct 2003 M 14 expended
• Dutch funding end 2003 M 52 for
  infrastructure
• funding must be matched by partners
• 18 member consortium additional partners
  possible
• formal goal is economic positioning w.r.t.
  adaptive sensor networks
• RF, seismic, infra-sound, wind-energy sensors
• prototyping of a full station is in progress
• 100 low frequency antennas in field, now are
  making all-sky videos
• end 2004, expect 2 beam web-based system on-line
  (to gain experience)
• issues calibration, RFI, adaptive
  re-allocation of resources
• BlueGene/L delivery in 1Q-2005
• FDR start in mid-2004, complete mid-2005
• procurement start mid-2004, end mid-2006
• Initial operational status end-2006 (solar
  minimum)
• full operational status mid-2008

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Remaining tasksfor which partners are being
sought
Where?

• Array configuration size new stations !
• extension of array size to 400 km is highly
  desirable
• cost is 500k per station
• fiber connections through Géant, national
  academic networks
• Definition, designation of operations centers
• Science Operations Centers are remote, on-line
• basic data taking and archiving of observations
• financing mostly local, plus contribution to
  common services
• Engineering Operations Center in Dwingeloo
• monitor system, perform maintenance
• integrated operations team (with WSRT, possibly
  JIVE)
• Operational modelling and User interface
• use of (quasi-real-time) GRID technologies
  foreseen
• work packages not funded / manned yet

Where?
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User involvement

• Test User Group
• Heino Falcke, leader
• Lars Bähren, Michiel Breintjens, Stefan Wijholds
  etc
• open, remote access to developing system
• step-wise functionality improvements until 2006
• 1st user workshop Dwingeloo, May 24-25, 2004
• ASTRON is ready to host a (limited) number of
  young researchers to test, help develop the
  system
• Formal operations from 2007
• scheduling will be an interesting problem

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LOFAR Research Consortium
Universities Research Institutes Commercial
Univ. of Amsterdam ASTRON (management org.) Ordina Technical Automation bv
TU Delft CWI Dutch Space bv
TU Eindhoven IMAG Twente Institute for Wireless and Mobile Communications bv
Univ. of Groningen KNMI ScienceTechnology bv
Leiden Univ. TNO-NITG
Nijmegen Univ. LOPES Consortium
Uppsala Univ. MPIfR-Bonn