EISCAT-3D FP7 PROPOSAL

Ian McCreaRutherford Appleton Laboratory

UK

Basic Scenario

Orginal concept (E-Prime) in 2002

EISCAT_3D Design Study (FP6) proposed 2004

Funding €2.8M over four years

Began May 2005, ended April 2009

Originally four participants (EISCAT, UiT, LTU, RAL)

IRF added in third year (Gudmund moved from EISCAT)

Very successful in developing the basic concept, some issues left (deliberately) open

ESFRI Roadmap

European Strategy Forum for Research Infrastructure

Roadmap of future facilities seen as being vital to Europe’s research infrastructure.

Started in 2006 with 34 new projects

Another 10 projects (including EISCAT_3D) added in December 2008

Multiple committees/ subject headings. EISCAT_3D was introduced (by Sweden) under the environmental heading

Independent of the EU, but being used in practice as EU guide to future facilities

FP7 Infrastructure Call EU infrastructure call under the 2010 work programme (published July

2009)

Contains specific sub-section for the support to the preparatory phase of new research infrastructures (10 of these)

“Finalisation of legal organisation, management and multi-annual financial planning. Some technical work could also be considered”

Total of €35M reserved under this heading. Each project can propose a programme up to 4 years duration, with a limit of €6M.

Ten projects eligible to propose.

Deadline 3rd December 2009, 17:00 CET

Money will begin “before end 2010”

FP7 Proposal so far... Ian employed 50% of time since July to work on application. Anders

started work last month.

Discussions began after submission of the FP6 documents (Users Meeting in May, EISCAT Workshop in August, meeting of several consortium partners in Sodankyla in September)

Proposal under active development (87 pages so far)

Nine partners so far. Original five: (EISCAT, IRF, UiT, LTU and RAL) to maintain continuity of expertise.

Four new partners (VR?, SNIC?, Oulu, National Instruments)

VR participation will be known on October 29

Discussions with SNIC last week in Umea

EU-funded Work Packages

EU-funded work packages:

WP1: Management (EISCAT) WP2: Legal/logistical (EISCAT) WP3 : Science planning (EISCAT) WP4: Outreach and user liaison (EISCAT) WP5: Consortium building (EISCAT) WP6: Performance specification (EISCAT) WP7: Digital signal processing (Oulu) WP8: Antenna and front end (Lulea) WP9: Transmitter (IRF-K) WP10: Software (Oulu) WP11: Imaging Radar (UiT) WP12: Data segment (SNIC) WP13: Mass-production issues (EISCAT)

Total activity 15-20 persons working simultaneously, plus some hardware for testing

Former FP6 PartnersEISCAT – Co-ordinates whole proposal. Runs project office. Leads WP1 (Management), WP2 (Legal/logistical), WP4 (Outreach and user liaison), WP6 (Performance Specification), WP13 (Production Issues)

IRF Kiruna – Expertise in radar systems design and electronics. Leaders of Swedish national proposal (with Umea). Host institute of Swedish EISCAT staff. Leads WP9 (Transmitter)

University of Tromso – Expertise in imaging algorithms and interferometry. Leaders of Norwegian national funding bid. Leading Work Package 10 (aperture synthesis radar)

Lulea Technical University – Expertise in front-end electronic design and antennas. Leads WP8 (Antennas and front-end).

RAL – Involvement needs to be agreed, depending on NERC attitude. Possible involvement in science planning and some management activities.

New Partners for FP7 Swedish Research Council (VR) – original sponsors of the EISCAT-3D

project into ESFRI. Involvement very valuable in co-ordination and logistics area. Involvement to be confirmed (or not) next week.

Swedish National Infrastructure Centre (SNIC) – Responsible for national e-infrastructure activities (computing, storage, networking). Would lead WP12 (data segment) in conjunction with Nordic providers

Univ of Oulu – World-leading expertise in digital signal processing,

optimisation of experiments, development of analysis. Leader of Finnish national proposal. Host institute for Sodankyla EISCAT staff. Leads WP7 (signal processing) and WP11 (software)

National Instruments – Large-scale manufacturing company with capabilities in Europe. The kind of partner we need to involve in implementation phase. Advice critical for WP13 (production issues). Also involved with WP8.

Sub-contractors Five possible sub-contractors:

Stanford Research International (SRI) built US phased array radars (AMISRs) considerable experience of radar operations and mass-production (WP7, 13)

ASTRON (Netherlands) developers of the LOFAR system, including a high-band receiving antenna at the EISCAT-3D frequency (WP7)

Ettus Ltd – producers of the USRP (Universal Soft Radio Peripheral), the digital processing solution proposed by Oulu (WP7)

Corgan Ltd – software (firmware) developers for FPGA and signal processing applications (WP7)

Electropolis – consortium of small high-tech industries in northern Sweden (WP13)

Work Packages and Resources

WP No. Title Lead Inst. SY/Y Money Duration

1 Management EISCAT 1 1-48

2 Legal/logistical EISCAT 1 1-36

3 Science Plan ?? 1 0.5 1-36

4 Outreach EISCAT 1 0.25 1-48

5 Consortium EISCAT 1.5 1-42

6 Performance Specs EISCAT 1 1-8

7 Signal Processing UOULU 2 2 8-42

8 Antenna LTU 1 8-42

9 Transmitter IRF 1 1 8-42

10 Imaging Radar UiT 1 8-42

11 Software UOULU 2 8-42

12 Data Segment SNIC 1 1-36

13 Production Issue EISCAT 1 8-36

Nationally-funded work packages

Complementary to EU activities, supported by national money

Swedish national funding is by far the largest

WP2A: Legal/logistical issues in Norway (UiT)

WP7A: Digital receivers for MST applications (Oulu)

WP8A: Construction of two Swedish remote receivers (IRF-K)

WP9A: Construction of modular transmitter (IRF-K)

No national funding known to be allocated as yet, decisions will be made in the next month or two.

Application is being written on the basis that national funding will be available

Nationally-Funded Work Packages

WP No. Title Lead Inst. SY/Y Money Duration

2A Legal/logistical: Norway

UiT 1 -9-27

7A MST Receiver UOULU 2 0.5 -9-27

8A Passive receivers IRF 3 3 -9-51

9A Transmitter modules

IRF 2 2 -9-27

Needed now

Milestones and deliverables from some WPs Some missing sections of document (Progress

beyond state of art, Impact, Ethical and Gender aspects)

Refinement of tasks and hardware costs Cost models from all participants Iteration of staff levels and other costs GANTT charts, PERT diagrams etc.. Draft of consortium agreement Letters of support from all relevant RCs Only five weeks to go !!!!

Consortium Meeting

November 12th at FMI, Helsinki Organised by Kirsti Complete draft application will be

available Discussion and finalisation of overall plan Final changes to activities Organisational details will be available

this week

Evaluation

Scientific and/or technical excellence Scientific excellence World-level service

Quality and efficiency of management Management structure and procedures Quality of partnership

Impact Value and importance of EU contribution Importance for the European Research Area

Need to score more than 3/5 in all these headings...

What happens then?

Once evaluations done, we may be called to hearings List of questions to be answered

Selected for funding, or on reserve list ? Negotiation phase Grant agreement No money before autumn next year..

Science Plan

Section A: Upper Atmosphere and Geospace Atmospheric energy budget Space plasma physics Small-scale structures Large-scale processes Geospace environment

Section B: Technique development with EISCAT-3D

Section C: Service applications of EISCAT-3D

SectionD: Science implications on radar design

Need to add figures, references, make better to use for outreach.....

Outstanding data issues

Essentially this is the work programme of WP12

What effect does final signal processing philosophy have on our calculated data rates?

Help in refining the data model

Networking – can we get fibre to these remote places ? The Finnish “black hole”.

On-site data challenges (data handling and internal infrastructure): large short-duration low-level data

Data curation: Petabyte scale archive

Data services, user support etc. Opportunities for outsourcing?

Computing/networking discussions

Initial contacts established to NORDUnet (by EISCAT) and to SUNET (by the Swedish national proposal team)

Presentation of EISCAT-3D data requirements at NORDUnet meeting (Copenhagen) and EGEE-09 (Barcelona) in September

EISCAT-3D data requirements presented to e-IRG in Uppsala last Wednesday and Thursday

Discussion at that meeting involving NORDUnet (Gronager), UNINETT (Koster), SUNET/SNIC (Holmgren), FUNET (Oster)

How should we handle the WP12 on data segment issues, bearing in mind the Swedish national proposal, and given that the Swedish arrays might create the first demand for the data system?

e-IRG Meeting Proposal

Proposal by Sverker Holmgren:

EISCAT and SNIC jointly recruit a Nordic co-ordinator for EISCAT-3D

This person could be located in Umea

His/her responsibility to develop the data system in co-ordination with the other Nordic providers

This person would be work package leader for WP12

Effort on WP12 would be of order 1 to 1.5FTE

This is one model, but there may be others....