Data Acquisition System For Experiments Research Articles

Shedding Light on the Failure Factors of Subsea Critical Fastener Bolts

Offshore facilities, such as oil and gas rigs, wind turbines, and related subsea equipment, typically use flanges fastened using bolts and nuts as the main connectors. In this study, multidisciplinary parameters, namely the preload torque used to tighten bolts, simulated subsea water currents, water temperature, and impressed current cathodic protection, were applied to ASTM A193 B7 bolts. An experimental supervisory control and data acquisition system was designed to obtain measurements every 5 min throughout a 21-day experiment. Finite element analysis was performed to predict the structurally vulnerable areas of the bolts. A strong correlation was found between the reference electrode readings and the measured electrical current, tightening torque, and water temperature. As the water temperature rises during the day, the reference electrode reading becomes less negative and the electrical current decreases. Subsea water currents cause about a four-time increase in the bolt corrosion rate, with unprotected bolts suffering a nine-time-higher corrosion rate than protected bolts. A unique supply–demand interaction is observed; less protection is supplied to areas with lower corrosion rates (lower demand for protection). Finally, scanning electron microscopy examination reveals new insights into the failure mechanisms of subsea bolts.

Experimental study on the use of the ARM Cortex M7 processor for measuring far-field blast waves

AbstractThe ongoing study of blast waves and blast wave mitigation continues to play an essential role in protecting structures and personnel. The methodology, however, for capturing far-field blast waves in large-scale tests has remained largely unchanged for three decades, relying on large arrays of pressure transducers connected by hundreds of meters of cabling and requiring a considerable amount of time to set up. This paper evaluates the use of a modern low-cost microprocessor with high computational power to capture blast waves with sufficient fidelity to provide scientists and engineers with credible data. The system utilizes an ARM Cortex M7 processor as an experimental data acquisition (DAQ) system for measuring far-field blast waves in an open-air blast arena at sampling speeds of up to 1.8 Msps (megasamples per second). The experimental system’s performance was evaluated by comparing it to a traditional commercial system used for measuring blast waves. The comparison showed an average Spearman correlation coefficient r of 0.928 between the two systems, suggesting a low variance between the commercial and experimental DAQ systems. This suggests that, despite its simplicity, the experimental system is an effective and low-cost alternative for accurately measuring blast waves.

Design of a high performance Digital data AcquIsition SYstem (DAISY) for innovative nuclear experiments

A dedicated digital data acquisition (DAQ) system has been developed for innovative nuclear data measurements, from time-of-flight to irradiation experiments as well as other basic nuclear physics experiments. The DAQ system is based on fast digitizers with 14 bits resolution and 1 GS/s sampling rate for reliable pulse shape discrimination, energy and timing resolution measurements. Thanks to the high throughput provided by the PCIe bus, data can be processed at CPU or co-processor level, thus allowing great flexibility and reliability. The use of an external clock system and a dedicated triggering system guarantee a very precise synchronization with other possible subsystems in any experimental setup. Finally, its modularity allows to build a flexible and scalable system.

Control and data acquisition system for collinear laser spectroscopy experiments

Control and data acquisition system for collinear laser spectroscopy experiments

Versatile DMA Engine for High-Energy Physics Data Acquisition Implemented with High-Level Synthesis

FPGA-based cards for data concentration and readout are often used in data acquisition (DAQ) systems for high-energy physics experiments. The DMA engines implemented in FPGA enable efficient data transfer to the processing system’s memory. This paper presents a versatile DMA engine. It may be used in systems with FPGA-equipped PCIe boards hosted in a server and MPSoC-based systems with programmable logic connected directly to the AXI system bus. The core part of the engine is implemented in HLS to simplify further development and modifications. The design is modular and may be easily integrated with the user’s DAQ logic, assuming it delivers the data via a standard AXI-Stream interface. The engine and accompanying software are designed with flexibility in mind. They offer a simple single-packet mode for debugging and a high-performance multi-packet mode fully utilizing the computational power of the processing system. The number of used DAQ cards and the amount of memory used for the DMA buffer may be modified in the runtime without rebooting the system. That is particularly useful in the development and test setups. This paper also presents the development and testing methodology. The whole design is open-source and available in public repositories.

Advanced Safety Programmable Logic Controller and Operational Programmable Logic Controller for Data Acquisition Control System of SADHANA Sodium Loop

The SAfety Decay Heat Analysis in NAtrium (SADHANA) sodium loop is designed with two PLC controllers. All safety control interlocks are monitored by a Safety programmable logic controller (SPLC), and temperature control, including averaging ON/OFF heaters, is managed by an Operational PLC (OPLC).The decay heat exchange system of the SADHANA sodium loop is evaluated using these combined safety and operational PLCs. In the case of reactor loss of offsite and onsite power, decay heat generated in the reactor core after shutdown is removed by four Safety Grade Decay Heat Removal (SGDHR) systems [1,2,3,4,5]. Each exchanger (AHX) is located outside the reactor containment building, and a sodium loop circulation is created by natural convection [6,7,8,9,10]. The purpose of construction of SADHANA loop, with simulated models of DHX and AHX to study the performance of the SGDHR system, has been planned [11,12,13,14,15]. The SADHANA sodium loop has been commissioned, operating at isothermal temperatures of 300°C and hot temperatures of 500°C/& 550°C. The smart instrumentation and control system comprising Loop Operational Data Acquisition and Control System (LODACS) and Experimental Data Acquisition System (EDAS) are used in the SADHANA sodium loop. During the tests, LODACS personal computer and Instrumentation panel monitor loop parameters such as sodium level, leak, and pressure. In SADHANA loop DHX and AHX temperature decay heat changes monitoring by EDAS. The temperature of the pool in Test vessel 4 (TV-4) is controlled by immersion type sodium heaters via PID controllers. Currently, the loop consists of 64 surface heaters, 30 immersion type sodium heaters, and 205 thermocouples (84 Nos. of operational thermocouples and 121 Nos. of experimental thermocouples). According to the experimental thermocouples are being monitored by a separate fast data acquisition (scan rate of 10 seconds) by in-house developed software. This technical paper also describes the implementation of PLCs in different data acquisition control systems.

A field-programmable gate array (FPGA)-based data acquisition system for closed-loop experiments.

We describe a custom and open source field-programmable gate array (FPGA)-based data acquisition (DAQ) system developed for electrophysiology and generally useful for closed-loop feedback experiments. FPGA acquisition and processing are combined with high-speed analog and digital converters to enable real-time feedback. The digital approach eases experimental setup and repeatability by allowing for system identification and in situ tuning of filter bandwidths. The FPGA system includes I2C and serial peripheral interface controllers, 1 GiB dynamic RAM for data buffering, and a USB3 interface to Python software. The DAQ system uses common HDMI connectors to support daughtercards that can be customized for a given experiment to make the system modular and expandable. The FPGA-based digital signal processing (DSP) is used to generate fourth-order digital infinite impulse response filters and feedback with microsecond latency. The FPGA-based DSP and an analog inner-loop are demonstrated via an experiment that rapidly steps the voltage of a capacitor isolated from the system by a considerable resistance using a feedback approach that adjusts the driving voltage based on the digitized capacitor current.

Leveraging audio hardware for underwater acoustics

Both active and passive underwater acoustic systems frequently use purpose built hardware that is designed for a particular application. Transducers, electronics, and data acquisition systems for field experiments, therefore, are often expensive, tailored to limited frequency bands, or packaged for integration with a specific platform. Reliance on custom hardware, however, can make initial experimental investigations of new sensing paradigms cost prohibitive. The expense also creates an entry barrier to experimental work for students and researchers outside the underwater acoustics community. Audio hardware, however, is widely available, easily integrated using commercial data acquisition tools, and is often of relatively low cost. This presentation will describe two efforts to use audio hardware for inexpensive experimental investigations of underwater acoustics topics. The first, AirSAS, uses audio transducers and electronics to investigate synthetic aperture sonar problems in air that are analogous to those underwater. The second, the Citizen Scientist Hydrophone, integrates underwater transducers with consumer audio electronics to make an inexpensive, multipurpose passive sensing device. Challenges and limitations of using commercial audio hardware for underwater acoustics, especially as they relate to accuracy and data quality, will be discussed.

A generic streaming data acquisition system for high-energy physics experiments

The data acquisition system is a vital component in the high-energy physics experiment. To reduce redundant developments and allow for a fast setup under changing conditions, D-Matrix has been developed as an integrative solution in digital signal domain, including the hardware infrastructure and the data handling logical system. Its philosophy is to abstract different tasks in the data processing and encapsulate them as reusable modules with standard inter-module connectors. Furthermore, D-Matrix builds a unified model to integrate software and hardware design so that the system can be built from a global view. D-Matrix will be used in ion cooler-storage-ring external-target experiments. It aims at the research of phase structure of cold and high baryon density nuclear matter and the equation of states of cold asymmetric nuclear matter at supra-saturation densities. This DAQ can also be used in other high-energy physics experiments with little modifications. This paper presents the architecture and some details of the D-Matrix.

VerDAQ: a Versatile Data AcQuisition system for high energy physics experiments

The Versatile Data AcQuisition (VerDAQ) system is a modular and flexible data acquisition platform designed to be used in a wide range of high-energy physics experiments, from small desktop detectors to large experiments in accelerators.The main characteristic of VerDAQ is its flexibility that stems from a modular design, separating the front-end electronics in a mezzanine board from the back-end electronics on a motherboard. The latter includes a programmable System-on-Chip (SoC) that provides preprocessing and communication capabilities.The VerDAQ system is hardware and firmware reconfigurable, enabling its use in standalone instruments as well as integrated into extensive data acquisition systems.In this paper, the system structure is described in detail, and a particular implementation of a laboratory prototype using the DRS4 chip is characterized and used to demonstrate standalone operation.

Development and Experimental Investigation of a Marine Vessel Utilizing the Energy Ship Concept for Far Offshore Wind Energy Conversion

The energy ship is a concept for offshore wind energy capture which has received very little attention until today. To this date, there had not been yet an experimental proof of concept. In order to tackle this issue, an experimental platform and data acquisition system has been developed. A 5.5m long sailing catamaran served as a platform equipped with a 240mm diameter water turbine. The energy ship platform has been tested several times in the actual river to investigate the workability of the platform and data acquisition system. Results show that energy ship platform can produced 500W electric power for a true wind speed of 10 knots.

Designing a vacuum chamber and substrate positioning system for magnetron sputtering deposition applications

A new custom vacuum chamber with a substrate positioning system in our SMARTMAT laboratory is needed, as the previous one that we installed did not suit our needs. Based on our experiences with the old sputtering system, we designed a smaller vacuum chamber that could be attached to our existing load-lock system, and that could have a substrate positioning system suited for our magnetrons which would work with the load-lock. The new system replicates our initial experiments and is compatible with our experimental data acquisition system. We mounted the sensors and vacuum equipment on the chamber, and initial vacuum tests were a success, which validated our design.

An E-Textile Respiration Sensing System for NICU Monitoring: Design and Validation.

The world is witnessing a rising number of preterm infants who are at significant risk of medical conditions. These infants require continuous care in Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICU). Medical parameters are continuously monitored in premature infants in the NICU using a set of wired, sticky electrodes attached to the body. Medical adhesives used on the electrodes can be harmful to the baby, causing skin injuries, discomfort, and irritation. In addition, respiration rate (RR) monitoring in the NICU faces challenges of accuracy and clinical quality because RR is extracted from electrocardiogram (ECG). This research paper presents a design and validation of a smart textile pressure sensor system that addresses the existing challenges of medical monitoring in NICU. We designed two e-textile, piezoresistive pressure sensors made of Velostat for noninvasive RR monitoring; one was hand-stitched on a mattress topper material, and the other was embroidered on a denim fabric using an industrial embroidery machine. We developed a data acquisition system for validation experiments conducted on a high-fidelity, programmable NICU baby mannequin. We designed a signal processing pipeline to convert raw time-series signals into parameters including RR, rise and fall time, and comparison metrics. The results of the experiments showed that the relative accuracies of hand-stitched sensors were 98.68 (top sensor) and 98.07 (bottom sensor), while the accuracies of embroidered sensors were 99.37 (left sensor) and 99.39 (right sensor) for the 60 BrPM test case. The presented prototype system shows promising results and demands more research on textile design, human factors, and human experimentation.

A study of UDP and TCP FPGA implementation for data acquisition system

Two main protocol stacks for gigabit ethernet are currently widely adopted in the data acquisition system for high energy physics experiments. The first method is based on User Datagram Protocol (UDP), which transfer packets before an agreement is provided by the receiving party. However, the second method, called Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), establishes a connection through a process of the three-way handshake. We designed two FPGA projects, based on UDP and TCP respectively, on such a real application as ethernet communication module for ALICE calorimeters. The test of both projects is carried out on the same Xilinx Virtex-6 FPGA board, and data is captured through a professional network protocol analyzer. We analyzed the implementation methods and complexity, the variation patterns of data throughput, and the resource utilization of the two designs. The findings obtained under the same application scenario and test platform not only reveals the variation rule of actual data throughput, but also proved that the TCP would require twice as much FPGA resource for implementation as the UDP.

Study on pressure oscillation characteristics in a constant volume bomb

The pressure oscillation characteristics of a promising gasoline additive Di-isopropyl Ether (DIPE) were studied. The experiments were operated in a constant volume bomb (CVB) under different initial pressure (1, 3, 5 bar) and equivalence ratio (0.8–1.6). The experimental data acquisition system includes pressure, sound pressure and vibration detection system and Schlieren system. The experimental results show that the pressure oscillation intensity first increases and then decreases with increasing of the equivalence ratio, and the overall oscillation intensity increases with initial pressure. The sound pressure, vibration intensity and gray-scale brightness extracted from flame processing photos all have the same tendency. N2 is replaced by He and CO2 dilution gas with different blending ratios to investigate the change of oscillation. The effects of several factors’ behavior were studied. When Markstein length is low, the pressure oscillations become much easier to occur. The increase of Zeldovich number can decrease the intensity of oscillations. It is induced that the combustion instability is the main reason for pressure oscillations in constant volume bomb.

Parameter Identification of a Model Scale Ship Drive Train

Simulation models of the ship propulsion system play an increasingly important role, for instance in controller design and condition monitoring. However, creation of such simulation models requires significant time and effort. In this paper, the application of deterministic identification techniques on a DC-electric ship drive train is explored as an alternative for data-driven identification techniques that require extensive measured data sets collected over long periods of ship operation. First, a nonlinear and a linear simulation model that represent the dynamic behavior of the propulsion plant are developed, and the main parameters to be identified are defined. Then, a set of experiments on a model scale boat in the bollard pull condition are conducted using an ad hoc experimental setup and data acquisition system. Subsequently, various types of identification techniques are applied, aiming to determine the unknown model parameters. Eventually, a comparison is made between experimental and simulated results, using the different sets of the estimated parameters. The value of the demonstrated approaches lies in the fast determination of unknown system parameters. These parameters can be used in simulation models, which in turn can be used for various purposes such as system controller development and tuning. Furthermore, periodic determination of system parameters can support condition monitoring to detect faults or degradation of the system. The latter point directly deals with the condition-based maintenance issue; in fact, monitoring the propulsion plant parameters over time could allow for better management (and timing) of maintenance. Although the developed ideas are far from ready to be used on the full-scale, the authors believe that the methodologies are promising enough to be developed further towards a full-scale application.

Status of the GEM/CSC tracking system of the BM@N experiment

Baryonic Matter at Nuclotron (BM@N) is a fixed target experiment at the NICA accelerator complex (JINR) aiming at studies of nuclear matter in relativistic heavy ion collisions. Triple-GEM (Gas electron multiplier) detectors have been identified as suitable for the BM@N central tracking system, which is located inside the analyzing magnet. A cathode strip chamber (CSC) is mounted outside the magnet to improve the momentum resolution of the experimental setup. Seven GEM detectors and one CSC are integrated into the BM@N experimental setup and data acquisition system. The structure of the BM@N GEM and CSC detectors and the results of the study of their characteristics are presented. The full configuration of the GEM/CSC tracking system is shortly reviewed.

Investigation of MEMS as accelerometer sensor in an Implantable Centrifugal Blood Pump prototype

Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) accelerometers have applications in many fields based on the measurement of Cartesian components of the gravitational acceleration vector. Miniaturized MEMS have low power consumption and adequate response to dynamic acceleration. In order to detect thrombus inside blood pumps, an experimental setup was assembled with the MEMS accelerometer sensor (ADXL335, Analog Devices, Norwood). This detector should contribute to a recent study of fault diagnosis in an Implantable Centrifugal Blood Pump (ICBP) using vibrational analysis for detection of thrombus adhered in the pump’s rotor. This work proposes to verify the performance of the experimental data acquisition system developed with the MEMS accelerometer sensor in the vibrational analysis of ICBP. For this, a comparison between the vibrational spectra obtained by the MEMS acquisition system and the commercial type Vaibro® Vibrational Analyzer and Field Balancer (Rozh—VaibroSmart CH1 model) is made. Tests were carried out with different pump speeds in a mock loop, at this stage, without thrombus simulation. The vibrational spectra were plotted on graphs for analysis of their harmonic components, based on the fast Fourier transform. The spectral features for each speed of the pump rotor are compared and discussed. The experiment shows that the MEMS accelerometer sensor has better efficiency in detecting harmonics in the range from $$\approx $$ 50 to $$\approx $$ 150 Hz, at speeds greater than 1200 rpm, suggesting that MEMS can detect thrombi in ICBP.

Large area BM@N GEM detectors

Baryonic Matter at Nuclotron (BM@N) is a fixed target experiment at the NICA accelerator complex in JINR aimed to study nuclear matter in relativistic heavy ion collisions. Detectors based on Gas Electron Multipliers (GEM) are used for the central tracking system of the BM@N experiment, which is located inside the BM@N analyzing magnet. The structure of the GEM detectors and the results of study of their characteristics are presented. The performance of seven GEM detectors integrated into the BM@N experimental setup and data acquisition system is briefly reviewed.

A novel centralized slow control and board management solution for ATCA blades based on the Zynq Ultrascale+ System-on-Chip

Data acquisition systems (DAQ) for high energy physics experiments utilize complex FPGAs to handle unprecedented high data rates, especially in the first stages of the data processing chain. The complexity of developing and commissioning these systems increases as additional local processing intelligence is placed closer to the detector directly on the ATCA blades. On the other hand, sophisticated slow control is as well desired. In this contribution, we introduce a novel solution for ATCA based systems, which combines the IPMI, a Linux based slow-control software, and an FPGA for custom slow-control tasks in one single Zynq Ultrascale+ (ZUS+) System-on-Chip (SoC) module.