Planar Phased Array Feed for the Lovell Telescope

Phased Array Feed (PAF) is an emerging technology to increase the field of view for the radio telescopes based on reflector antennas. The Lovell Telescope has been used for over 50 years for investigating cosmic phenomena. This work reports a low profile circular PAF design for the Lovell antenna based on the experience from the antenna design for the Mid-Frequency Aperture Array of Square Kilometre Array. The objective is to provide a low profile and cost effective PAF design suitable for cryogenically cooling of the entire front-end to improve noise performance. The EM performance of the proposed PAF design and its characteristics are reported in this paper.