A hardware calibrator for the RAPID instrument

The Radio Array of Portable Interferometric Detectors (RAPID) is an advanced radio instrument designed for a diverse range of scientific applications including radio astronomy and geospace imaging radar. RAPID aims to employ physically disconnected arrays of antennas, which can capture raw voltage data to process post-experiment. The signal processing for the system is software defined and uses a cloud computing architecture. The instrument is realised through the use of various inventive technologies. One important part of the system is a software switchable precision calibration unit for the low-noise front-end which will allow the output spectrum to be calibrated down to an estimated level of 1% in radio quiet zones. Here, we present the design, implementation and early results obtained for this system.