SKA Designs (working numbers)
| Parameter | Strawman | China | Europe | India | Ozlens | Ozcyli | USA | Canada |
| Aeff /Tsys (#stations) | 2 104 m2/K | 3.5 104 (30) | 1 104@Zen (100) | 2 104 (8000) | 2 104 (300) | 2 104 (600) | 2 104 (4400) | 2 104@Zen (60) |
| Total Frequency Range | 0.15 - 20 GHz | 0.3 - 6 | 0.15 - 1.5 | 0.15 - 10 | 0.1 - 5 | 0.1 - 9 | 0.15 - 34 | 0.1 - 22 |
| Imaging Field of View | 1 square deg. @ 1.4 GHz | 13 (MBR) x 0.005 | 1 | 1 | 3.6 | 1 | 1 | 1 (FPA) |
| Number of Instantaneous Pencil Beams (# subarays) | 100 | 1 (few) | 8 (many) | 1 (many) | 2 (many) | 8 | 1 (many) | 1 (few) |
| Maximum Primary Beam Separation low frequency high frequency |
100 deg. 1 deg. @ 1.4 GHz |
NA | 90 | NA | 150 | 40x1@1.4 | NA | NA |
| Angular Resolution (max baseline / km) | 0.1 arcsec @ 1.4 GHz | 0.2 (300) | 0.02 (2000) | 0.02 (3000) | 0.01 (10000) | 0.02 (5000) | ||
| Surface Brightness Sensitivity / (50% area baseline / km) | 1 K @ 0.1 arcsec, continuum | (30) | (100) | 0.7(4) | (4) | 1(35) | ||
| Instantaneous Bandwidth | 0.5 + v/5 GHz | 0.2 | 3.0 | 2.4 | 3.2 | 4.0 | ||
| Number of Spectral Channels | 104 | 2x4096 | 2x4096 | 2x4096 | 16384 | |||
| Number of IFs (max sep of IFs / GHz) | 2 | 3 (1) | 4 | 4 (full band) | 1 | |||
| Dynamic Range Imag (Spec/Pol) | 106 @ 1.4 GHz | 105 | 106 (?/104) | 106 | 106 (?/104) | 105 | ||
| Polarization Purity | -40 dB | |||||||
| Response time / s | Not specified | 100 | <1 | 60 | 60 | 60 (<1 within 40deg) | 60 | 100 | Sampling time / s | Not specified | short |
| #spatial pixels | 108 | 5 1010 | ||||||
| Notes | 68% sky | All sky (with 3 tilts) | Array parallels USA; >10GHz with panels | Blockage? | Unblocked | |||
| Cost / G$ | 0.85 | 0.78 | 0.5 (elements) | 1.4 | 1.0 | 1.8 | 2.0 |
Aeff /Tsys : The effective collecting area divided by the system temperature. This may be a function of frequency.
Total Frequency Range: The total frequency tuning range of the instrument. This may be divided into sub-ranges with different antenna technologies, and it is not necessarily contiguous.
Imaging Field-of-View: The instantaneous, contiguous solid-angle area of the sky that can be imaged, given a sufficiently capable correlator. This area will be a function of frequency.
Number of Instantaneous Pencil Beams: The number of "phased array" pencil beams that can be placed simultaneously within the Imaging Field-of-View for point source observations such as pulsars, stars (including SETI), and VLBI.
Maximum Primary Beam Separation: This specification assumes that the facility will have at least two levels of beam forming. Signals from small antennas (dipoles, small dishes, etc.) are combined to form an array element primary beam, and signals from array elements can be combined in a correlator to make a map within the primary beam or combined directly to form one or many pencil beams within the primary beam. More than one primary beam could be formed within the pattern of the small antennas. The Maximum Primary Beam Separation specifies how far apart these primary beams can be formed simultaneously.
Angular Resolution: The maximum angular resolution of the array as determined by its largest linear extent (longest baseline).
Surface Brightness Sensitivity: The minimum detectable continuum surface brightness for a specified resolution, e.g., 1K @ 0.1 arcsec. This may be a function of frequency.
Instantaneous Bandwidth: The widest contiguous frequency range that may be observed simultaneously given enough correlator or other processing capability. Typically this means the widest selectable IF filter bandwidth before the digitizer.
Number of Spectral Channels: The number of independent frequency samples from the array after all signal processing.
Number of Simultaneous Frequency Bands: The number of widely spaced frequency ranges that may be observed simultaneously. for example, a stellar flare study might want to observe at 1.4 and 5.0 GHz at the same time, each with instantaneous bandwidths of 0.3 GHz.
Imaging Dynamic Range: The best intensity dynamic range that may be obtained in a fully processed synthesized map, as limited by unknown errors in the array or its environment.