e-VLBI at SC2004!!

Real-time e-VLBI Demonstration at SC2004 a Great Success!

Alan Whitney at the e-VLBI display at SC2004

For the first time, e-VLBI played a prominent role at the annual Super Computer Conference! This year's meeting, dubbed 'SC2004 and held in Pittsburgh 7-12 Nov 2004, hosted live real-time demos for several hours each day during the week long show. e-VLBI shared exhibit space with the DRAGON project, with which MIT Haystack Observatory is collaborating, and set up an exhibit where live results of real-time e-VLBI from the Haystack correlator were displayed. The demo was done in two modes for several hours during each day of the show:

1. Live real-time data was piped from the Westford (near Haystack in MA) and NASA/GSFC (MD) antennas at 512 Mbps to the Haystack Mark 4 VLBI correlator for several hours on each day of the show. The live correlation results were displayed in a 3-dimensional plot (see figure below) in Pittsburgh as the data were correlated, so the correlation signal could be seen building up and the noise declining as the integration period increased.

2. During periods when the antennas were not available, pre-recorded data were transferred to Haystack from Westford, GGAO, Onsala (Sweden) and Kashima (Japan), followed by immediate correlation, again showing results in Pittsburgh as the correlation proceeded.

Many visitors to the booth were interested in seeing a 'real' science application of high-speed networking and learning about VLBI and e-VLBI.

Thanks goes to all who worked very hard to make this demonstration a success. At Haystack, David Lapsley, Roger Cappallo, Mike Titus and Kevin Dudevoir worked long hours both before and during the demo. Mike Poirier and Jay Redmond manned the Westford and GGAO antennas. The DRAGON folks provided much support both before and during the show. At Kashima and Onsala, we received wonderful support from Yasuhiro Koyama and Rudiger Haas, respectively, and their colleagues. At NASA/GSFC, Pat Gary and his folks assisted in network preparations. MIT Lincoln Laboratory provides the Bossnet network and great support. And NSF and NASA have provided most of the funds to support the underlying work that made the demo possible and are helping to move e-VLBI towards routine operational reality.

~Alan Whitney

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