PROCEEDINGSOF THE IEEE, VOL. 61, NO.

9, SEPTEMBER 1973 1211

(261 P. Goldreich and W. H. Julian, ‘Pulsar electrodynamics,”Astrehys. (291 V. Radhakrishnan and D. J. Cooke,‘Magnetic poles and the p
J., ~ 0 1 157,
. pp. 869-880, 1969. larization structure of pulsar radiation,” Astrophys. U t . , vol. 3,pp.
[27]V. L. Ginzburg, V. V. Zheleznyakov, and V. V. Zaitsev, “Coherent 225-229, 1969.
mechanisms of radioemissionandmagneticmodels of pulsars,” [30] M. 2. Komesaroff, ‘Possible mechanism for the pulsar radio emis-
Astrophys. Space Sci., vol. 4, pp. 464-504, 1969. sion, Nature, vol. 225, pp. 612614, 1970.
[ZS] F. G. Smith, ‘Thebeaming of radiowaves from pulsars,” Mm. [31]P. A.Sturrock,“Pulsarradiationmechanisms,” Nature, vol. ‘227,
Not& R w . AS~YOU. SOC., V O ~149,
. pp. 1-15, 1970. pp. 465-470, 1970.

Earth-Rotation Aperture Synthesis

EDWARD B. FOMALONT

Abstract-Resolution for radio astronomy in the order of 1’ is and quasars, with incident power levels of lWf7 W. m-* Hz-’
necessary for the stady of distant radio galaxies and quasars, for have been cataloged, but only a few percent can be resolved
detecting faint sources, and for the mapping of clouds of hydrogen with the beamwidth of several arc minutes available using
andother molecules. To obtain these resolutionsmanynew or
planned radio instruments use arrays of moderate size radio t e l a even the largest simple telescopes operating a t their highest
scopes to synthesize large physical apertures. These instruments are frequency (-30 GHz). Detection of faint sources also requires
generally composed of one or several linear arrays and utilize the high resolution to avoid confusion between the many sources
rotation of the earth to change the relative orientation of the array at low power levels in the reception area of a telescope. Radia-
and the radio source. tion, both line and continuum, from the Milky Way Galaxy
Thetechniquesused for e&-rotationaperture synthesis are
discussed. The response of a two-element interferometer and the and nearby galaxies can generally be resolved with large tele-
geometryassociatedwithearth-rotation synthesisare reviewed; scopes, but higherresolution would be useful even here in
the current andproposed designs for these instruments and their understandingthe physical processes concerning regions of
performance are described; and, finally, the inversion methods for ionized hydrogen,neutralhydrogen, cold densemolecular
determining the angular power distribution of a radio source from the
array response (visibilityfunction) are outlined. clouds, or concerning the mass and velocity distributions in
galaxies.
I. INTRODUCTION Many methods have been used by radio astronomers to

T H E BASIC MEASUREMENT in radio astronomy is obtain high resolution since i t is not economically feasible to
the determinationof the distributionof power I&, d, t ) construct a simple steerabletelescope larger than about100 m
fromacelestial source as a function of frequency Y, or a fixed telescope of about 400 m. Because i t is unnecessary
angular position d, polarization state (i,j = 1, 2 represent the to completely fill an area with a reflecting surface to provide
four polarization states), anda possible variation with time t . the resolution of that area, skeleton instruments have been
With the use of a simple large telescope with narrow band- designed to obtain high
resolution without using large
width capabilities and proper polarimeters all of the charac- amounts of collecting area. A skeleton instrument may con-
teristics of the radio radiation can be measured. tain several long thin pieces of a parabolic reflector, several
For astronomical‘ applications, however, the useful sensi- cylindrical reflectors, or an array of many small elements suit-
tivity of a simple large telescope is often more limited by its ably connected. Configurations such as a “tee,” cross, or ring
finite angular resolution than by its sensitivity. Thousands of using these reflectors produce pencil beams comparable with
discrete radio sources, many associated with distant galaxies thespannedaperture.Skeletoninstrumentsarelimitedto
sizes, however, to about a kilometer. A detailed analysis of
Manuscript received April 19, 1973.The National Radio Astronomy these instruments is given elsewhere [l].
Observatory, Green Bank, W. Va., is operated by Aasodated Universities, I t is not even necessary that all of the elementsof an aper-
Inc, under Contract with the National Science Foundation. ture be present simultaneously. A large aperture may be syn-
The authoris with the National Radio Astronomy Obeemtory, Green
Bank, W. Va. 24944. thesized by using several moveable elementsto occupy in
1212 PROCEEDINGS OF TEE IEEE, SEPTEMBER 1973

turn the relatibe positions that occur in a large aperture. The

relative positions can also be changed by utilizing the rotation
of the earth. If a radio source isfollowed in its diurnal motion
by all of the elements, the relative positions between the ele-
ments as viewed by the radio source change both in length and
orientation. Thus by utilizing both the rotation of the earth
and the mobility of the elements, very large apertures can be
synthesized.Observations of transientphenomenasuchas
pulsars and the sunare not suited for aperture synthesis.
The techniques used for earth-rotation aperture synthesis
(sometimes called supersynthesis) are discussed in this paper.
The application of coherence theory to radio interferometers
and arrays has been fully developed elsewhere [2]-[6], but a
brief geometric derivationis given in Section 11. In Section111
the characteristicsof various types of arrays and arraydesign
criteria with the emphasis on earth-rotation synthesis methods
are discussed. Fourier inversions and other techniques used
to obtain the angularpower distribution are described in Sec- Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of a simple two-element interferometer.
tion IV.
11. BASICINTERFEROMETRY The usualcomplex (phasor) notation has been usedfor the
The radiation produced by virtually all astronomical ob- response. The phase of the response is equal to thephase (not
jects is statistical in nature and can be completely described time!) path length difference between the two radiation paths.
in terms of the average power distribution I&, d, t ) . Using The diurnal motionof an extraterrestrial radiosource con-
the theory of partial coherence, all of the characteristics of the tinuously varies the geometric delay causing the response to
power distribution are related tocross correlations of the inci- have aquasi-sinusoidal behavior-commonly calledfringes.
dent radiation field a t different points in space (spatial coher- Alternatively, the fringes can be described as a 'beating" of
ence),intime(temporal coherence), and between the field the two signalswhich are Doppler shifted to slightly different
components(polarization coherence) [7]. I t can be shown frequencies at the correlator due to the relative motion of the
that the spatial coherence function and the angylar power two elements with respect to the source.
distribution are two-dimensional Fourier transforms and the Forobservationsover a largefrequencybandwidth Av
temporal coherence functionandthefrequency power dis- the differential time delay AT between the signalsat thecorre-
tribution (spectrum) are one-dimensional Fourier pairs. Thus lation point must be smaller than (Av)-l to insure that the
by measuring the coherence of the incident radiation over a entire bandwidth adds in phase. Thus the inserted delay TD
wide range of spatialandtemporalseparationinvarious is usually varied (tracked) to compensatefor the change of T ~ .
polarizations,the power distributionmay be reconstructed This can be done with digital or analog techniques to an ac-
with much higher angular or spectral resolution than is possi- curacy of better than1W9s. Assuming accurate delay tracking
ble with a large simple telescope. with respect to an angular position do, the interferometer re-
Arrays of antenna elements are essentially probes of the sponse becomes
spatial coherence of a radiation field. With a large number of
elements, suitably connected, a sufficient number of spatial
coherence components can be measured in a reasonably short
period of time in order to obtaina satisfactory reconstruction
V
of the angular power distribution.
A simple two-element interferometer, thebuilding block of
all arrays, is shown in Fig. 1. Consider a monochromatic signal
The response to an extended source I(d-&) with a wide
of frequency v emanating from a point source whose direction
bandwidth interferometer having a frequency characteristic
is given by d. Two elements separated by a fixed baseline B
of B(v) and a primary power pattern G(d-dO)l is given by
intercept the radiation, two samples of which are then trans-
integrating (2) over d and v
portedwithout loss of characteristicsto a commonpoint
where they are correlated; i.e., their time averaged sum or
product is taken. In most arrays the radio frequency v is con-
vertedtoanintermediatefrequency(IF) VIP, by a super-
heterodyne processusingacommon local oscillator of fre-
quency YO, before transmitting the signals to the central point. exp { j 2 r yC B . ( d - do)
Time delayTD is usually inserted in the I F line to compensate
for the geometric time delaydifference T~ in the arrival of the
radiation to each element.
The time-variable partof the response after correlation is
I exp
{j 2 r:-pB . 6 > V(B).

For simplicity, the angular dependence of the source and the

R(v, d) = S,exp {j2r[uru- VIFTD]} (1)
where S,is proportional to the sourcepower, usually denoted 1 The primary power pattern of a two-element interferometer equals
as flux density with oneflux unit defined as 10-%We m-* Hz-'. the product of the voltage pattern of each element.
FOMALONT:EARTH-ROTATIONAPERTURESYNTHESIS 1213

power pattern are assumed to be independent of frequency plane. With sequential movementof some of the elements and
and normalized a t do. The response is composed of two parts: the use of the earth rotation, if necessary, the (u-v) plane can
the fast time dependence(fringes) is equal to the responseof a be “adequately“ covered and a radio map I’(Z,m) can be re-
point source at do at anobserving frequency YO. A slower vary- constructed using the inverse relation
ing quantity W ( B ) , the visibility function, describes the ampli-
tude and phase offset of the fringes. In general, the visibility I’(Z, m) = G(1, m)I(Z,m)
function is a complicated function of the bandwidth, emission
extent,and baseline geometry.Thevisibilityfunctionis = JJ +
W(u,o) exp { --j2r(d m ) ] d u do. (8)
closely related to the spatial mutual coherence function used
in coherence theory. The major assumptions and simplifications used in deriv-
The various quantities are generally expressed in terms of ing (7) and (8) are [4] as follows.
an astrometric coordinate system fixed to the radio source. A 1) The linearization of B . (d-do) into u and o is otlly valid
unit vector e, is taken as the direction of do and the two per- for small angular displacements. The neglected term (n- l)w
pendicular unit vectors are e, and e, with ground projections can be incorporated by a redefinition of m only for an east-
towards the east and the north, respectively. This coordinate west oriented baseline [8] where an aperture is defined by the
system is shown schematically in Fig.1. The angular displace- array. Otherwise, the Fourier pair relationship between the
ment ( d - & ) can be expressed in terms of the direction cosines visibility function and the angular power distribution is not
(1, m, n) true. For a baseline of lo5wavelengths, the phase term can be
(d - do) = eZ , + em + e,(n - 1). (4)
as large as 70” at a displacement of 10’.
2) The effect of a large frequency bandwidth has not been
Using the astronomical coordinates of do as (ho, 60) where ho included. For a bandwidth A v , the exponential in the integral
is the hour angle and 60 is the declination and ( h , 6) are the of (3) does not add coherently for emission at large angular
coordinates of d, the direction cosines become displacements in the direction of the projected baseline. For a

Z = -cos 6 sin ( h - ho) = (ho - h) cos 60 = (a - ao) cos 6 0

The right ascension of a source a is related to the hour angle baseline of106 wavelengths and Av= 100 MHz the coherence
by the sidereal time t where a=t-h. The baseline B can be angleis about 2’. For somearrays,largebandwidthsare
decomposed into a transverse projected baseline b = e,u+e,o chosen to produce a coherence area which is smaller than the
and alongitudinal baseline e,(B.do) which is equalto cr0 primary beam area [ 9 ] , [lo]. The resultant radio maps using
where c is the speed of light. In the astrometric frameof refer- (8) produce a “radialsmearing”duetothelargeband-
ence, the components of the baseline change as a source moves widths [ll].
in its diurnal track, giving 3) The radio map includes theeffect of the primary power
pattern which must remain unchanged for all interferometer
yo
I I
u = - B cos D sin ( h o - a) pairs at all times. This requires accurate pointing of each ele-
C ment as the source moves in its diurnal track and the use of
yo identical element pairs. I t also assumes that the elements be
v = - IBI (cos60sinD-sin60cosDcos(ho-EI)) polar mounted so that there is no mutual rotation between
C
G(1, m) and I(1, m).
4) The l/n term in the solid angle dd = (l/n)dl dm can
M = -1
YO

c
BI(sin60sinD+cos60cosDcos(ho- H)] (6) be incorporated in the definition of G(1, m).
5) There is no angular coherence of the radiation. A treat-
where the baseline directionis given by ( H , D),the hour angle ment for partially coherent radiation [4]shows that little can
and declination of the interferometer end point. The loci of be learned of theangular power distributionbyinterfero-
pointsinthe (u-v) planefortheprojected baseline b are metric techniques.
ellipses centered on the v axis. The units of the baseline are 6) Only identically polarized pairs should be included in
most naturally expressed in units of wavelengths a t the local- (8) for reconstruction of theradiomap in theparticular
oscillator frequency. Examples of tracks are given in Fig, 2. polarization state measured by the pairs.
Many synthesis arrays make use of the earth rotation to cover
a wide range of projected spacing. 111. ARRAYDESIGNAND PERFORMANCE
With certain simplifications, the visibility functiondefined The first synthesis array designed touse the rotation of the
in (3) becomes earth was erected in 1955 [12] and in the last ten years in-
creasing use andunderstanding of earth-rotationsynthesis
u(u,o) = JJ G(Z,~ > I (nr)z ,exp ( j 2 r ( z ~ l +m)1dl (7) arrays have been made [13]. These arrays consist of a modest
number (2 to -30)of elements, each a paraboloidal antenna
the two-dimensional transform of the angular power distribu- of significant size on a suitable mount for mechanicallyfollow-
tion. An array of N elements can be decomposed into a maxi- ing a radio source in its diurnal track. In most arrays some of
mum number of N ( N - 1)/2 interferometer pairs each sam- the telescopes are moveable on railroad track or roadbeds in
pling the visibilityfunctionon the two-dimensional (u-) order to change the array resolution or fill-in factor. All of
1214 PROCEEDINGS OF THE IEEE, SEPTEMBER 1973

3
APERTURE TRANSFER FLMTICW RADIAL P M R F'ATTERN

~-37.

I
t

1
;,' ,...';&'
..............
..........
..............
.'?. .

.. .. . le- " . .... 78:

._
............. 10.
a'*&

f
Z l
.
lr
l/
i
L p
-lm 1,5A/d'

........ '*d. zs1

'
CMpOuND GWTiNG ARRAY

Fig. 3. The radial transfer function and radial power pattern with a) a
simple parabolic telescope, b) a grating array, c) a minimum redun-
dancy array, and df a compound grating array.
Fig. 2. The loci of points in the (u-v) plane produced by a tracking inter-
ferometer. (a) A skew baseline. (b)An east-west baseline. (c) A north-
south baseline. The loci are drawn for declinations 70°, 30°, and 10'.
tains a large redundancy of small separations which results in
The solid portion of each curve corresponds to the hour angle range
-6h to +gh; the dotted portion for the hour angle range of +shto a moderately large beamwidth but very low sidelobes. The
+ l S h . The hour angle scale, which is only a function of u, is given at
grating array (assuming all pairs are correlated) hasa 'lumpy"
the bottomof each diagram. Fordeclinations southof the equator,use
transfer function because of the gaps between the elements;
the curve with positive declination butreflect the curve about v = 00.
The basdine orientation is given by H and D.(Taken from [ l l ] . ) the envelopeof the transfer function and beamwidth is similar
to that of a parabolic antenna. However, the sidelobe level is
these arrays require hours or days of observing timeof an area much larger. Sizeable grating lobes occur a t radii intervals of
of sky in order to obtain a good angular reconstruction of the X/S, where S is the array stepping interval andX is the wave-
source. length of the radiation. The finite aperture size of the array
Nearly all of therecentearth-rotationsynthesisarrays elements rejects radiation at displacement angles larger than
consist of a linear arrayof antennas from which a satisfactory - X / d . A minimum redundancy array optimizes the number
one-dimensional distribution can be synthesized [14, table I]. of independent consecutive spacings available from a given
Theelementsare usually placed a t integralmultiples of a number of elements [IS].The transfer function hasa uniform
basic interval called the stepping interval. As demonstrated envelope resultingin a smallbeamwidthbutsubstantially
in Fig. 2, the direction of maximum resolution rotates as a larger sidelobes than a grating array. In order to suppress
source is tracked so that relatively complete angular coverage grating lobes, compound grating arrays areused. These arrays
of the (u-u) plane may be obtained in about 12 h. The most combineone or several large elements with a physical size
suitable coveragefor high-declination sources is obtained with greater than the stepping interval of the remaining smaller
an east-west oriented array where the (u-u) tracks are ren- elements. Only element pairs involving the larger element(s)
tered. a t the origin. Only half of the (u-v) plane need be are used. The grating sidelobes are suppressed by the narrow
sampled since the angular power distribution in any polariza- primary pattern of the element pairs.
tion must be a real quantity. For arrays with onlya few move- Since the visibility function for each element pair is mea-
able elements, many configurations are necessary to cover the sured separately, the transfer function may be changedby
(u-u) plane. suitably weighting thedata associated witheach spacing.
The response of an array, or in fact any radiating surface, Thus theresponse of the grating array may be changed to that
canbecalculated using the transfer function c(b) [l]. The of the minimum redundancy array by weighting more heavily
transfer function isa measure of the density of mutual separa- the large spacings before inverting the data. Various methods
tions b contained in any radiating surface and is equal to the of weighting are discussed in Section IV.
autocorrelation of the aperture current distribution. The aper- The arrays at Westerbork [16]and Cambridge [I71 con-
ture may be continuous as in an antenna or piecewise continu- tain several fixed equi-spaced antennas and several moveable
ous as in an array. The Fourier transform of the transfer func- antennas, all on a n east-west line. With observations on sev-
tion is the synthesized power pattern A(d) where era1 subsequent days with different configurations, the step-
ping interval can be made sufficiently small, if desired, so that
A (d) = Jc(b) exp ( j 2 r d . b } db. (9)
the grating lobes are placed outside of the relevant source
emission or the primary beam area. Also these arrays could
be expanded in resolution with the additionof a few antennas.
Exploitation of thecircularsymmetry of east-west earth- Usually the redundant spacings are not correlated with a re-
rotation synthesis gives sultant loss in the signal-to-noise ratio. The minimum redun-
dancy array at Stanford [14]and that proposed by Cal Tech
A'(4 = J
PC'(P)Jo(2"PI)dP ( 10) [18] give maximum coverage in the (u-u) plane for a given
number of antennas.However,changesin resolution and
where A'(r) is the radial angular power distribution and c'(p) stepping interval cannot be made unless all of the antennas
is the transfer function of the linear array. are moveable.
I n Fig. 3 the transfer function and radial power distribu- The transfer function obtained with non east-west linear
tion are given for a parabolic antenna and a grating array, a arrays [19]does not generally fill a half-plane. However, use-
minimum.redundancy array, and a compound grating array ful earth-rotation aperture synthesis can still be done. In this
using earth-rotation synthesis. The parabolic antenna con- case the grating rings and beamwidth are not elliptical and
FOMALONT: EARTH-ROTATION APERTURE SYNTHESIS 1215

BERM 2695 HHZ

t
-'"I
S J
RIGHT RSCENSIOH 1")

Fig. 4. The synthesized power pattern for a source at declination 40°

using the NRAO interferometer. The spacingsof 300-m units of 1, 2,
3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9, at a frequencyof 2695 MHz, were used with -6h
to +sh tracking. 5-percent contourlevels are drawn with the0 contour
omitted. The grating lobes and the half-power beamwidth are asym-
metric. 20-percent sidelobesare produced by the missing sector in the
(u-w) plane.

larger sidelobes occur because of missing wedges in the (u-v)

plane. In Fig. 4 the synthesized power pattern for a source a t
declination 40" using the National Radio Astronomy Observa-
tory, GreenBank, W. Va., three-elementinterferometeris
shown. The arrayis oriented 28" south of west. Sample tracks
in the (u-u) plane for this baseline are shown in Fig. 2(a).
The disadvantages of a linear array are the lackof resolu-
tion in someanglesforsourcesnear the equator or in the
opposite hemisphere and the requirement of 12 h of tracking.
The array at Fleurs [20] contains both an east-west and a
north-south arm. Although each arm is used independently,
goodcoveragein the (u-v) planecanbeobtainedfor low
declination sources. At the Owens Valley Radio Observatory
in California a 1600-ft northsouth rail track complements a
4000-ft eat-west track enabling effective aperture synthesis
with three elements as far south as the galactic center.
The VLA [lo], an arrayof 27 elements, each a 25-m parab-
oloid, is a Y-shapedarrayhavingthreeequiangularlinear
arms of 21 km. The optimum element positionswere obtained
empirically in an attempt to minimize the number of gaps in
the (u-u) plane for a variety of source declinations with about
10 h of tracking time [21]. For a high-declination source, the
maximum sidelobe level is about the same as a simple tele-
scope, and for a source south of declination 5' sidelobes of 5
percent are present. All antennas are moveable so that four
similar arrays witha maximum arm length of 0.5 to 21 km can
be obtained. The transfer function and power pattern for the
VLA are shown in Fig. 5 . No grating lobes occur since the ele-
ment positions on each arm do not have a stepping interval.
General properties of two-dimensional arrays using earth-
rotationsynthesishave been investigated[22]. In order to
coveruniformly the (u-v) plane,threeguidelinesaresug-
gested: 1) The northsouth extent should be longest to com-
Fig. 5. The VLA. (a) Approximate location of the 27 elements for the
21-km configuration. (b) The transfer function for a source at 6 =20°,
12-h tracking. (c) Thesynthesized power patternshown usingline
profiles. (Taken from [lo].)
pensate forbaselineforeshorteningin that direction. 2) A
higher density of baselines should be oriented in theeast-west
direction to compensate for the slow rate of (u-v) coverage by
an east-west interferometer nearoh hour angle.3) The element
position should follow a square law for which successive ele-
ment separations in any radial direction are consecutive odd
integers. Theelementlocations for the VLA,althoughob-
tained in an empirical manner, do follow the above criteria
reasonably well.
The theory of randomly placed elements [23] has not been
seriously considered in the design of present arrays. A major
advantage is the suppression of grating responses. However,
many elements are necessary to avoid statistical clumping.
IV. INVERSIONMETHODS
The basic output of a synthesis array is a vast collection
of numbers. A sample of the visibility function U ( b i ) is asso-
ciated with the response of each correlated pair of antennas
over a certain averaging interval and defined by an average
1216
projected spacing bj in the (u-u) plane. The averaging interval
should be sufficiently short so that the change of projected
spacing over the observation is less than an element radius.
Many calibrations are necessary to convert the “raw” visibil-
ity functions intoa calibrated set and these have been described
elsewhere [ll]. I n brief, the calibrations are obtained by ob-
serving strong small-diameter sources of known flux density,
angular position, and polarization. The measurement of the
system gain, various path length changesaffecting the visi-
bility function phase, precise location of each element, and the
system polarization response can all be determined by suitable
astronomical measurements.
A . Normal Fourier Methods
The angular power distribution I(d) can be determined
from the radio map I’(d) using the discrete form of (8)
N producedbyanypost-gridded
I’(d) = G(d)I(d) = zuj’u(bj)exp { - j2rbj.d) (11)
j- 1
where wj is the observation weight. The power pattern A(d)
correspondingto a set of observationsisfoundbysetting
V ( b j )= 1.
A straightforward application of (11) is possible with no
more than a few hundred points in the(u-u) plane but requires
a computing time proportional to N4 complex additions and
multiplication, where N isthenumber of sampledpoints.
With the use of linear arrays in earth-rotation synthesis, a two weighting functions p and w areinterchangeable.The
polar coordinate representation of the data is natural and(11)
can be separated into a radial sum and an angular sum with a where x = r D l . A Gaussian smoothing function is most com-
decrease in the computing time.
The fast Fourier transform (FFT)[ 2 4 ] algorithm makes i t
possible to obtain radio maps from an extensive and detailed
set of observations using but several minutes of execution
time, proportional to 2N2 logt N , on a medium-size computer.
The use of the algorithm requires the “gridding” of the visi-
bility function; that is, the determination of the value on a
rectangular lattice of points in the (u-v) plane. This requires
transformation of the data which slightly modify the radio
maps.
The effects of the various manipulations in making a radio
map I’(d) using the (FFT) and its relationship to I(d) are
shown in the following equation:
* s(b)lj
I’(4 = s(q(b).III(A).[(w(b>.u(b))
= Q(d) *m(l/A) * {S(d) [W(d) * (G(d) *I(d))11 (12)
where 5 is the two-dimensional Fourier transform; is multi- - pared with uniform weighting but near-in sidelobe levels are
plication; * is convolution; and (s, S), (a, Q), and ( w , W )are
Fourier pairs.
First, the visibility* function’u(b) is weighted by w ( b ) and
then convolved with a smoothing function s(b).This convolu-
tionis necessary to define a continuous visibility function
from the discrete sampled points. The functionis then sampled
on a grid of interval A-mathematically indicated by multi-
plicationwith a “shah”function III(A) [ 2 5 ] . The gridded
data may then be further weighted by p(b). The fast Fourier
transform 5 is then applied. Inusual practice most of the grid
points contain no data so the saving on computing time as
compared with more direct transforming methods is not very
significant for a small number of observations.
* Effecta due to averaging the visibilityfunction over a finite interval
are not considered here.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE IEEE, SEPTEMBER 1973
The desired radio map I(d) is transformed in thefollowing
manner. First, the Fourier transformof the visibility function
is assumed equal to G(d) I(d) as discussed in connection with
(7). The visibility function weighting w ( b ) modifies the syn-
thesis beamwidth and the sidelobe levels as desired by W(d).
Further “tapering” by S(d) results from the convolution of
s(b) in the (u-v) plane. The tapering effect is strictly true only
for a high density of sampled points. With a small number of
points interaction between the (u-u) sampling and the grid
sampling can producea variety of effects. The grid sampling of
A in the (u-v) plane produces a radio map which repeats at
intervals l/A; the inner region of l/A by l / A is called the
“field of view” of the map and all radiation outside of this
area is aliased into the field of view. Thus the grid interval A
should be as small as possible to prevent overlapping in the
map. Finally, a further convolution of the radio map Q(d) is
weighting. Thesynthesized
power pattern is obtained by replacing the measured visibility
function by unity, i.e., determining the response to a point
source at the phase center
A(d) = Q(d) * m ( l / A ) * {S(d) * W(d) 1. (13)
Three types of convolution functions aregenerally consid-
ered. The one requiring the least amount of calculations is the
“pill-box function” s ( b )= 1, 1 bl < D / Z ; s(b)=0, 1 bl > D / Z .
If the pill-box size D is chosen equal to the grid size A, the
tapering function then has a form sin x / x in each dimension
monly used because the tapering function, also Gaussian, de-
creases smoothly to zero. However, lengthy calculating time,
often longer than that for the FFT, isneeded. The interesting
convolutionfunctionsin(rlA)/rlA in each dimension pro-
duces no effect in the radio map within the field of view l/A.
However, calculation time is even more lengthy in this case.
The choice of weighting dependsonmanycriteria. For
high resolution, uniform weighting is chosen. Equal weight is
given to each sampled (u-u) cell regardless of the amount of
integration time in the cell. This weighting produces a nearly
uniform transfer function with generally large sidelobe levels.
The radio map associated with uniform weighting is generally
called the“principalsolution.” However, there is nothing
intrinsicallysuperiortothisparticular weighting. Conven-
tionalweighting addsanadditionalGaussian-shapedtaper
which decreases the transfer function at the outer spacings to
about 30 percent. The beamwidth is slightly broadened com-
significantly reduced. For optimum signal to noise the data
should be weighted in proportion to the square of the signal-
to-noise ratio. For noise-limited data of a point source, the
weight is proportional to the integration time. This produces
a transfer function which varies approximately inversely with
spacing and thus producespoorerresolution, but gives the
best signal to noise for a detection of a point source.
B. Other Inverswn Methods
The Fourier inversion processes typically result in sidelobe
levels of about 5 percent even with good coverage in the (u-v)
plane. With incomplete coverage, sidelobe levels of 30 percent
are common. Thus faint features which are still more intense
than the noise fluctuations can be obscured by sidelobes. Two
techniques arecommonly used for reducing the effects of side-
lobes: “cleaning,” and source subtraction.
FOMALONT: EARTH-ROTATION APERTURE SYNTHESIS 1217

X20 2695 HHZ

51 55

3C20 EEAH 2695 HHZ

SI’S5

Fig. 6 . The results of using the ‘cleaning” deconvolution method on the radio source 3C 20. (a) The radio map drawn with 5-percent contour levels.
Peak levels are shown. (b) The synthesized power pattern showing the relatively poor coverage in the (u-v) plane; 5-percent contours.(c) The clean
map. The clean beam is shown in the upper left. The samecontour interval of the radio map is used as in (a). No sidelobes larger than 5 percent
remain.

“Cleaning”is a type of band-limiteddeconvolutionin
which the radio map isdecomposed into a sum of synthesized
power patterns [26].The technique is also related to problems
of pattern recognition. If I’(d) is the radio map and A(d) is
the associated synthesized beam pattern, then a set of num-
bers Ci(di) are determined such that
where I,(d) is a residual map. The decomposition cannot be
done analytically and an iterative schemebeenhas developed.
The technique searches for the maximum value of the radio
map and then subtracts the synthesized beam pattern, suit-
ably scaled, centered a t t h e position of maximum. The re-
mainder map is then searched for the maximum point and
further subtractions of the beam are made. Termination of
the process occurs when the residual map is no larger than the
expected signal to noise, the number of iterations exceeds a
certain value, or the lack of convergence.
I t is important in the cleaning process that the radio map
be a true convolution of the angular power distribution and a
unique synthesized beam pattern. For direct inversion meth-
1218 PROCEEDINGS OF THE IEEE, SEPTEMBER 1973

ods such is the case (except for the effects discussed in connec- (contains a minimum of extrainformation)andconsistent
tion with (7) and (8)). For the FFT inversion method, the withthedata.Thetechniqueis successful with uniformly
aliasing effect limits accuratecleaning to the centerof the field sampled one-dimensional data withimproved resolution,
of view. virtually no sidelobes, and little cost in computingtime. How-
The method works because most radio maps contain nearly ever,thegeneralization of themethodto two-dimensional
empty sky with relativelyfew regions of radio emission. Thus data has not been worked out.
the number of parameters needed to describe the radio map
is often much less than the numberof independent samples in ACKNOWLEDGMENT
the (u-v) plane. Forlimitedobservations of very complex The author would like to thank Dr. J. R. Fisher and Dr.
emission regions, the cleaning technique breaks down. E. W. Greisen for their comments on the manuscript.
In order to display the result, a reconvolved map is ob-
tained using a “dean” beam A,(d) to convolve the setof point
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