Signal processing challenges for radio astronomical arrays

Current and future radio telescopes, in particular the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), are envisaged to produce large images (> 10⁸ pixels) with over 60 dB dynamic range. This poses a number of image reconstruction and technological challenges, which will require novel approaches to image reconstruction and design of data processing systems. In this paper, we sketch the limitations of current algorithms by extrapolating their computational requirements to future radio telescopes as well as by discussing their imaging limitations. We discuss a number of potential research directions to cope with these challenges.