Abstract
We present the outlines of a new microcontroller based data acquisition system which is aimed for reliable operation in a typical cosmic ray particle registration experiment. The system supports connection of up to 16 input signals and ensures the following operation functionality: (1)stable monitoring of the intensity of a digital pulse signal, or digitization of a continuous potential level with a low time resolution (typically, in the limits of 1-100s); (2)registration of a continuous high-resolution (up to 5-10us) time series of the intensity of input signal; (3)synchronization of registered time series with both external (physical) or local (program-based) trigger signal; (4)possibility of an on-the-fly change of the whole configuration of informational system (both the combination and type of input signals, time resolution and sum duration of the time series measurements, trigger logic, etc) immediately in operation time through convenient communication with a plain text message in dialog mode. In particular, the considered system is applied now for a long-term, high precision measurement of the counting rate of neutron signals at the NM64 type neutron supermonitor of the Tien~Shan mountain cosmic ray station, with a real-time representation of the whole collected dataset in a WWW database.
Highlights
The basic functionality of the considered system consists of continuous measurement of the counting rate separately for each neutron detector of the monitor, of automatic analysis of the monitor operation stability, and of regular sending of accepted results into some external database
Besides extensive air shower (EAS) events formed internally by the microcontroller itself, the high resolution time registration can be forced at any arbitrary moment by the arrival of a special control signal—the trigger, which can be elaborated outside the system, and comes as an electric pulse to a special input pin of the microcontroller
A further description of the microcontroller unit (MCU) based data acquisition system is made on the example of its variant which has remained in continuous operation at the 18NM64 neutron supermonitor of the Tien Shan mountain cosmic ray station since the beginning of 2015
Summary
The basic functionality of the considered system consists of continuous measurement of the counting rate separately for each neutron detector of the monitor, of automatic analysis of the monitor operation stability, and of regular sending of accepted results into some external database. Besides EAS events formed internally by the microcontroller itself, the high resolution time registration can be forced at any arbitrary moment by the arrival of a special control signal—the trigger, which can be elaborated outside the system, and comes as an electric pulse to a special input pin of the microcontroller Such a synchronization type can be useful, for example, for the registration of the signals from some outside neutron and gamma-ray detectors which should operate simultaneously and in parallel with the neutron monitor. The outer trigger synchronization mode can be switched on or off, again, by demand at any arbitrary time moment
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