Data acquisition and online monitoring software for CBM test beams

Abstract

The Compressed Baryonic Matter (CBM) experiment is intended to run at the FAIR facility that is currently being built at GSI in Darmstadt, Germany. For testing of future CBM detector and read-out electronics prototypes, several test beam campaigns have been performed at different locations, such as GSI, COSY, and CERN PS. The DAQ software has to treat various data inputs: standard VME modules on the MBS system, and different kinds of FPGA boards, read via USB, Ethernet, or optical links. The Data Acquisition Backbone Core framework (DABC) is able to combine such different data sources with event-builder processes running on regular Linux PCs. DABC can also retrieve the instrumental set-up data from EPICS slow control systems and insert it into the event data stream for later analysis. Vice versa, the DIM based DABC control protocol has been integrated to the general CBM EPICS IOC by means of an EPICS-DIM interface. Hence the DAQ can be monitored and steered with a CSS based operator GUI. The CBM online monitoring analysis is based on the GSI Go4 framework which can directly connect to DABC online data via sockets, or process stored data from list-mode files. A Go4 sub-framework has been implemented to provide possibility of parallel development of analysis code for different sub-detectors groups. This allows divide the Go4 components up into independent software packages that can run either standalone, or together at the beam-time in a full set-up.