The seven-dish KAT-7 array was built as an engineering test-bed for the 64-dish Karoo Array Telescope , known as MeerKAT , which is the South African precursor of the Square Kilometre Array ( SKA ) .
KAT-7 and MeerKAT are located close to the South African SKA core site in the Northern Cape ’ s Karoo desert region .
Construction of the KAT-7 array was completed in December 2010 .
The short baselines ( 26 to 185 m ) and low system temperature ( T _ { sys } \sim 26 K ) of the telescope make it very sensitive to large-scale , low-surface-brightness emission , which is one of the H i science drivers for MeerKAT and one of the future strengths of FAST .
While the main purpose of KAT-7 was to test technical solutions for MeerKAT and the SKA , scientific targets were also observed during commissioning to test the H i line mode and the first results obtained are presented .
A description of MeerKAT and an update on its construction is also given .
Early science should start in mid-2016 with a partial array and the full array should be completed at the end of 2017 .
For cosmic-web research ( detection of low column density H i ) , a future combination of data from FAST and MeerKAT should allow to explore the unknown territory of < 10 ^ { 18 } cm ^ { -2 } surface densities and the possible connection between spiral galaxies and the surrounding cosmic web .