Characterizing the Murchison Widefield Array Beam Pattern

A precursor to the SKA, the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) radio telescope was constructed in the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory in Western Australia. In order to correctly calibrate and image the data collected by the radio telescope, it is imperative that the beam pattern is known accurately. In this study, a rigorous approach was applied where the full array geometry was simulated using FEKO with a goal to characterize the beam pattern of the MWA and demonstrate that this approach was more accurate.