Keeping SKA1-LOW station beamforming errors acceptable

The quality of the station beams produced by the digital station beamformers of the low-frequency telescope of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) will be crucial for its performance. The various factors affecting the quality and stability of the station beams, such as electronic stability, calibration errors and the element beam patterns of the individual antennas, have therefore been studied extensively. This contribution aims to provide an overview of this work and synthesise this in a recommendation for further studies.