Antenna technology and radio astronomical research — A perspective on the trends

“Classical” radio astronomy is flourishing — its capabilities continue to grow as new technologies are married with ever wider-ranging astrophysical ambitions. I will present a strategic overview of trends concentrating on frequencies within the ground based window. Progress is always made by exploring new regions of observational parameter space (spectral range &resolution; brightness sensitivity; angular coverage &resolution; temporal coverage and resolution) enabled by the application of new technology. The areas now undergoing most change are: i) a focus on low frequencies — from 10 s of MHz to ∼ 1 GHz; ii) brightness sensitivity; iii) survey speed; iv) exploitation of the time domain. To a significant extent these have been triggered by the science thinking and the R&D associated with the Square Kilometre Array.