29-05-2013Arnold van Ardenne is awarded a certificate for his valuable engagement for AERAP

Dwingeloo, the Netherlands, May 29, 2013: African -European Radio Astronomy Platform (AERAP) is awarding Arnold van Ardenne a certificate in recognition of his outstanding engagement and lasting contribution to AERAP.

To mark van Ardenne’s 65th birthday, extensive career, and retirement this spring, ASTRON organized a one day symposium, "Reinventing Radio-Astronomy: Technologies that made a Difference" on May 29th, 2013.

Van Ardenne’s work at ASTRON (Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy) has been of major importance for the development of all kinds of technologies that made a difference in the institute and in the entire field of Radio Astronomy.
        
Among some of his contributions to ASTRON, van Ardenne set up the organization and the R&D program for the development for future large radio telescopes LOFAR and the Square Kilometer Array and coordinates the European SKA program. Focus is on the technology development of very wideband phased arrays receiving systems and the associated signal processing challenges including techniques for mitigating radio frequency interference to allow high dynamic range imaging.

Furthermore, he integrated the optical interuniversity group Kapteyn within the ASTRON R&D department and built up a strong optical/IR instrumentation group. The latter has contributed to a scientifically competitive observing suit at ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) site in Chili and La Palma on the Canary Islands mostly with (inter)national institutes and universities.

In addition, van Ardenne, who is coordinating the thematic priority “Instrumentation, Research and Development” of the AERAP Framework Programme for Cooperation, has also been a key participant in nearly all AERAP events.

The overall goals of AERAP are to leverage radio astronomy, advance scientific discovery, improve knowledge transfer and stimulate competitiveness across both continents. Van Ardenne has been a valuable contributor to AERAP, which aims to enable effective dialogue to build a shared vision for international cooperation in radio astronomy.

The symposium, "Reinventing Radio-Astronomy: Technologies that made a Difference", taking place in the Netherlands on May 29, 2013, exactly one month after van Ardenne’s 65th birthday, will be followed by a 1.5 day SKA AA Consortium Meeting. The topics for the symposium range from mm to low-frequency technologies, covering WSRT, JCMT, VLBI and the SKA.

Further information on the ASTRON one day symposium, "Reinventing Radio-Astronomy: Technologies that made a Difference": www.astron.nl/AvA2013/index.php

Symposium Programme: www.astron.nl/AvA2013/programme.php

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Arnold Van Ardenne’s Biography

Arnold van Ardenne was born in 1948 and received his MSc in Technical and Electronics Physics at Twente University in the Netherlands in 1973. During 1973-75 he worked as researcher at TNO defence laboratory in the field of electromagnetic modelling and component development for phased array radar antennas. During 1975-89 he worked as researcher and project manager at the Dutch national institute for research in astronomy ASTRON and from 1986 also at the national institute for Space research SRON on new instruments for radio astronomy from cm to (sub)mm wavelengths.
During the period 1989-94 he was responsible for new systems development at a Dutch Ericsson business unit as project manager and Research and Development manager. After that he became R&D director at ASTRON responsible for radio and optical instrumentation for astronomy and the technical R&D for the Square Kilometre Array. He contributed to the international and organizational framework of the SKA and coordinated European programs like “SKADS”. He invested considerable effort in knowledge transfer from the public to the private (commercial) domain e.g. in setting up and as (part-time) director of AstroTec Holding and contributed to a new engineering program on sensor technologies. He is now responsible for Dutch Industry engagement in SKA, renewable energies for science and pushing an active role of ASTRON as part of Dutch GNSS/Galileo related activities.  Arnold van Ardenne was appointed Adjunct Professor of Radio Astronomy at Chalmers University of Technology (Sweden) on April 1, 2006 until now.

Summary of van Ardenne’s Research

Arnold van Ardenne worked on technologies and components for low noise systems and cryogenic receivers and pioneered the use of the Westerbork Radio Aperture Synthesis array of telescopes as a single coherent phased array instrument for Very Long Baseline Interferometry. He developed an interest for high stability local oscillators and clock systems and pioneered the use of ultra stable phase transfer through telecommunications satellites.
For the purpose of what was later to be called the James Clark Radio sub-mm radio telescope on Hawaii, he pioneered the use of low noise multi-beam radio systems to enhance the observing field using superconducting mixers including its associated quasi optics and high stability local oscillator system. At Ericsson he developed an interest in ultra low power handheld radio communication receivers for a range of international markets optimizing product development strategies.
Back at ASTRON he set up the organization and the R&D program for the development for future large radio telescopes LOFAR and the Square Kilometer Array and coordinated the European SKA program. Focus is on the technology development of large fields of view and very wideband phased arrays receiving systems and the associated signal processing challenges including techniques for mitigating radio frequency interference to allow high dynamic range imaging. He integrated the optical interuniversity group Kapteyn within the ASTRON R&D department and built up a strong optical/IR instrumentation group. The latter has contributed to a scientifically competitive observing suit at ESO’s VLT site in Chili and La Palma on the Canary Islands mostly with (inter)national institutes and universities.
Among others, van Ardenne has served on ESO’s Scientific and Technical Committee as well as on ALMA’s Management Board and is chairing the national committee of the URSI, the international radio science union that resides under the umbrella of the national royal academy of sciences and is a senior member of the I.E.E.E. and the national royal society of Engineers.