Streaming DAQ Software Prototype at the J-PARC Hadron Experimental Facility

Abstract

In recent years, experiments in particle physics and nuclear physics have required faster data collection systems and advanced trigger systems as the beam intensity has been increased. The current data acquisition (DAQ) system at the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex (J-PARC) Hadron Experimental Facility (HEF) uses fixed- and low-latency triggers with dedicated hardware to reduce data and event-building software that merges data into a single endpoint. This conventional DAQ system is expected to be inadequate for future experiments. It has to be replaced with a new simplified but powerful system called streaming DAQ, which collects the detector signals and filters them with software running on many computers. Therefore, we developed a prototype of streaming DAQ software for the J-PARC HEF using FairMQ and <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Redis</i> as middleware. The key features include simplicity and a low learning cost to develop and be operated by a small number of people. The software can be used in a fully streaming readout system and in the triggered DAQ and the combined DAQ of the hardware and software triggers.