Has anyone created a correlator that only correlates overlapping subsets of the
antenna inputs? Suppose I have 32 inputs and want to correlate 1-16, 8-24,
16-32. For a large phased array feed it may only be necessary to correlate
relatively near neighbors. The benefit of correlating subsets comes if it's
easier to build three 16-input correlators than one 32-input correlator. If
it's true that only subsets are needed for a large phased array feed, then
complexity and resource usage grows linearly as the number of inputs is
increased, instead of exponentially. The drawback of course is that such an
architecture could be so complicated that it just translates computational
burden into longer development time and complexity. Does anyone have a sense
if this may be a bad idea or if anyone has done it?
Thanks,
Jonathan Landon
