Staff Visit to DIAS (Single-station building and operations)’, organized and hosted online by the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies from 25th-19th April 2022. The first three days of the workshop were held at the I-LOFAR Education Center in Birr, Co. Offaly and the last 2 were held in the DIAS Astronomy and Astrophysics building located at 32 Fitzwilliam Place, Dublin.
Staff visited DIAS to receive training on single LOFAR station building and operations. The training took place over 5 days and introduced IANAO/TUS to single station construction, maintenance and operations. The material was delivered by staff at DIAS and included sharing of knowledge gained during the construction of I-LOFAR, including the logistical aspects of the build and the technical maintenance of the station. DIAS researchers have gained considerable knowledge in these areas, and in particular have built custom software for scheduling and operation of I-LOFAR. Researchers from IANAO and TUS were trained in the use of this software. DIAS researchers have also built custom high-performance computing architecture on the I-LOFAR back-end (REALTA). An introduction to the construction and use of such computing architecture was also delivered to the IANAO/TUS researchers during this visit to fully prepare them for all logistical and technical aspects of single station build and operations.
