Abstract
Nowadays, many examples of data acquisition (DAQ) software for experimental nuclear physics are monolithic processes that run on a computer attached to the DAQ hardware. In this article we present a distributed DAQ system developed for the C-BORD project. With our system, we propose a novel approach, in which each task related to the different DAQ parts (acquisition, pre-process, analysis, etc.) runs in a separate process. In particular, the system is composed of a set of servers that exchange information through dedicated communication sockets. Therefore, with this architecture, an important advantage is the possibility to run the processes on different computers to distribute the computational load. The initial tests of the system have been giving excellent results, both in terms of performance (i.e., maximum acquisition rates) and stability. The project entitled “Effective container inspection at BORDer control points” (C-BORD) is funded by the European H2020 programme. Its aim is to develop a comprehensive set of technologies for the generalized non-intrusive inspection (NII) of containers and large-volume freight at the European Union border.
Highlights
The whole process of reading and digitizing the signals generated by nuclear detectors is usually referred to as data acquisition (DAQ), and the software that performs such a task is commonly called DAQ software, or DAQ
A DAQ is obviously in charge of reading out the analog-to-digital converters (ADC) results but often manages the auxiliary tasks related to the nuclear detector systems
In this article we present a new, distributed DAQ system
Summary
The whole process of reading and digitizing the signals generated by nuclear detectors is usually referred to as data acquisition (DAQ), and the software that performs such a task is commonly called DAQ software, or DAQ. Each process is dedicated to a simple purpose, following the ideas of the UNIX Philosophy.[1] For instance, one process reads only the ADCs data, another process manages HVs, and another one preprocesses the data for visualization With this distributed architecture, we were able to isolate, test, and debug each part very . During the early testing stages, we were able to update and modify the single processes on an already deployed system without disturbing the overall functionality This DAQ system was developed for the European H2020 project entitled “Effective container inspection at BORDer control points” (C-BORD).[2] The C-BORD project's aim is to develop a comprehensive set of technologies that can be employed together for the non-intrusive-inspection (NII) of commercial freight containers. This system was developed to acquire data from CAEN digitizers[3] and control CAEN HV power supplies.[3]
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