A Minimum Variance Method for Problems in Radio Antenna Placement

Aperture synthesis radio telescopes generate images of celestial bodies from data obtained from several radio antennas. Placement of these antennas has always been a source of interesting problems. Often, several potentially contradictory objectives like good image quality and low infra-structural cost have to be satisfied simultaneously. In this paper, we propose a general Minimum Variance Method that focuses on obtaining good images in the presence of limiting situations. We show its versatility and goodness in three different situations: (a) Placing the antennas on the ground to get a target Gaussian UV distribution (b) Staggering the construction of a telescope in the event of staggered budgets and (c) Whenever available, using the mobility of antennas to obtain a high degree of fault tolerance.