Integrated Radio Frequency Attenuation Maps for RFI Impact Assessments

The management and control of radio frequency interference (RFI) for radio astronomy observatories, especially those with operational telescopes as neighbours to large-scale construction activities such as the international Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project, are critical. Numerous interfering sources can impact operational telescopes during construction, and ensuring the adverse impacts from these sources on sensitive telescope receivers are minimized can be a challenging and time-consuming effort. Interference management is done through RFI impact assessments that, considering the source location as well as frequencies and levels of radiated emission, make use of radio frequency (RF) propagation modelling to determine path loss between the interference source and a sensitive telescope receiver. Considering the reciprocity in electromagnetic and antenna theory, this paper considers the use of pre-generated, integrated RF attenuation maps to streamline radio frequency interference impact assessments of large, complex telescope sites.