Design of DAQ Software for CSNS General Purpose Powder Diffractometer

Abstract

This paper presents the design of data acquisition (DAQ) software for China Spallation Neutron Source (CSNS) General Purpose Powder Diffractometer (GPPD). GPPD is made up of 36 MA-PMT detector modules and 6192 electronics channels. Total hit rate of GPPD is about 300 kHz. DAQ software is composed of readout module, detector and electronics configuration parameter management module, distributed communication module, EPICS interface module, data analysis for electronics module, interface with offline data analysis software, etc. Raw data from front-end electronics are read out via SiTCP gigabit Ethernet. C/C++ are used as the programming language. Qt is used as a development tool for Linux system, while LabVIEW is used for DAQ prototype design and GUI on Windows platform. The DAQ software has been tested in cobalt neutron source experiment and reactor neutron beam line experiment with detector and electronics system. The results show that the software is stable and reliable, meets the requirements of engineering deployment. Some improvement, optimization and function expansion are still undergoing according to the new experimental results