Arun Kumar Naidu
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Email: arun [at] ncra.tifr.res.in
Phone: 020-25719290
Extn: 9290
Office: F204A
National Centre for Radio Astrophysics
Tata Institute of Fundamental Research
Savitribai Phule Pune University Campus,
Pune 411 007
Maharashtra, INDIA
Tata Institute of Fundamental Research
Savitribai Phule Pune University Campus,
Pune 411 007
Maharashtra, INDIA
Main Research Areas: Pulsars and Fast Radio Bursts; High-performance computing; Low-level optimisation; Real-time data systems for large radio telescope arrays; Scalable software architectures for pulsar and FRB science.
Biography:
Arun Kumar Naidu earned his B.Tech. in Telecommunication Engineering from the Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore. After a brief period in the software industry, he joined the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA–TIFR), where he completed his Master’s and his Ph.D. degrees, in 2017. His doctoral work centred on commissioning the pulsar software backend for the Ooty Radio Telescope, and he used this backend to carry out single-pulse studies of pulsars. Following his PhD, he joined McGill University as a postdoctoral fellow with the CHIME/FRB and CHIME/Pulsar collaborations. At McGill, he developed a highly efficient software backend for CHIME/Pulsar and contributed extensively to the development and debugging of the CHIME correlator. He then moved to the University of Oxford as a Senior Software Architect, where he worked on designing and implementing advanced algorithms for the SKA pulsar search project. He joined NCRA in November 2025 as a faculty member.Research description:
My research focuses on developing highly efficient real-time software pipelines for time-domain radio astronomy. I specialise in optimised CPU/GPU algorithms for processing the massive data volumes expected from next-generation telescopes such as the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). My work spans pulsar instrumentation, real-time transient searches, and high-performance computing for radio astronomy.
Pulsar Backends and Instrumentation
I developed PONDER, a real-time pulsar processing backend for the Ooty Radio Telescope, which performs coherent dedispersion, dynamic spectrum generation, and real-time folding. I have also led development of the CHIME/Pulsar software backend, including GPU-based real-time pipelines, low-latency packet reception, and high-DM coherent dedispersion for FRB follow-up. My work makes extensive use of CPU performance-engineering techniques to achieve significantly higher throughput than traditional programming methods. I am currently adapting the CHIME/Pulsar pipeline for the HIRAX telescope to enable multi-beam real-time pulsar processing on modern GPU architectures.
I developed PONDER, a real-time pulsar processing backend for the Ooty Radio Telescope, which performs coherent dedispersion, dynamic spectrum generation, and real-time folding. I have also led development of the CHIME/Pulsar software backend, including GPU-based real-time pipelines, low-latency packet reception, and high-DM coherent dedispersion for FRB follow-up. My work makes extensive use of CPU performance-engineering techniques to achieve significantly higher throughput than traditional programming methods. I am currently adapting the CHIME/Pulsar pipeline for the HIRAX telescope to enable multi-beam real-time pulsar processing on modern GPU architectures.
Real-Time FRB and pulsar Search Pipelines
I am a core contributor to CHEETAH, the FRB and pulsar search pipeline for the SKA Pulsar Search Subsystem (SKA-PSS). A major contribution is Klotski, a highly efficient CPU-based implementation of the dedispersion transform (DDTR) and single-pulse detection (SPDT). Klotski uses cache-aware data structures and AVX-512 assembly to achieve real-time performance at SKA data rates, offering a cost-effective alternative to GPU dedispersion. I also work on real-time periodic searches for the SKA. I developed Labyrinth, a CPU-based frequency-domain search pipeline that outperforms the FPGA-based acceleration engine in SKA-PSS on a single processing thread. Labyrinth performs long FFTs, red-noise mitigation, and harmonic summing across thousands of dispersion trials, enabling sensitive searches for fast-spinning pulsars. I am actively developing a real-time, CPU-based acceleration search pipeline for SKA.
I am a core contributor to CHEETAH, the FRB and pulsar search pipeline for the SKA Pulsar Search Subsystem (SKA-PSS). A major contribution is Klotski, a highly efficient CPU-based implementation of the dedispersion transform (DDTR) and single-pulse detection (SPDT). Klotski uses cache-aware data structures and AVX-512 assembly to achieve real-time performance at SKA data rates, offering a cost-effective alternative to GPU dedispersion. I also work on real-time periodic searches for the SKA. I developed Labyrinth, a CPU-based frequency-domain search pipeline that outperforms the FPGA-based acceleration engine in SKA-PSS on a single processing thread. Labyrinth performs long FFTs, red-noise mitigation, and harmonic summing across thousands of dispersion trials, enabling sensitive searches for fast-spinning pulsars. I am actively developing a real-time, CPU-based acceleration search pipeline for SKA.
Selected publications:
1. The CHIME/Pulsar Collaboration et al., "The CHIME Pulsar Project: System Overview", 2021, The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, 255, 5 2. The CHIME/FRB Collaboration et al., "Observations of fast radio bursts at frequencies down to 400 megahertz", 2019, Nature, 566, 230 3. The CHIME/FRB Collaboration et al., "A second source of repeating fast radio bursts", 2019, Nature, 566, 235 4. The CHIME/FRB Collaboration et al., "The CHIME Fast Radio Burst Project: System Overview", 2018, The Astrophysical Journal, 863, 48 5. A. K. Naidu et al., "PONDER - A Real time software backend for pulsar and IPS observations at the Ooty Radio Telescope", 2015, Experimental Astronomy, 39, 319
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