Kazuo Nakayoshi

A common data acquisition system for high-intensity beam experiments

The J-PARC facility, which will be ready in 2008, is being constructed to perform a number of experiments including nuclear physics, kaon decays and neutrino oscillation. The expected data acquisition rate ranges from 500 Hz to 10 kHz, which is significantly higher than those used in the existing small experiments at KEK. We have developed a new data acquisition system that can be used in a wide range of experiments at J-PARC. The system consists of a KEK-VME crate, a readout platform module and peripheral modules. The readout platform module is highly modularized, having four slots to install daughter cards for digitization and three PCI mezzanine card (PMC) slots for on-board data processing and other purposes. The performance of the platform module and a model setup of the data acquisition system are reported

Modular pipeline readout electronics for the SuperBelle drift chamber

In order to explore new physics in B-meson decays we plan to upgrade the KEK B-factory to a luminosity of 5/spl times/10/sup 35/ cm/sup -2/ s/sup -1/. In parallel we are developing a new pipelined data acquisition system for the Belle detector to cope with higher trigger rates of up to 30 kHz and severe background conditions. In order to reduce development and maintenance costs, we have adopted a modular design for these new readout electronics. The chosen architecture consists of a common readout platform, upon which are mounted subdetector specific parts, customized to meet the readout requirements of each sub detector component. As an example of this new architecture, we present in this paper the design of drift chamber electronics. The drift chamber readout utilizes the AMT-3 time-to-digital converter chip, originally developed for the ATLAS experiment, which satisfies the performance requirement for current and future Belle drift chamber readout. A data transfer performance test with emulation modules, mounted on the common platform, shows that the new readout electronics works well at a more than 30 kHz input trigger rate.

A Data Acquisition Middleware

We propose a data acquisition middleware called DAQ-Middleware. The DAQ-Middleware will be able to make development of DAQ software easy which runs on many PCs. It consists of RT-Middleware based DAQ components and DAQ studio. The RT-Middleware is a software framework for robot systems and will be an international standard. The DAQ-component is one of the RT-components. The DAQ studio is a tool used for development, debugging and operation of the DAQ-components. We added a new function called RawTCP to improve the performance of data transfer. The performance evaluation is shown. The DAQ-Middleware will be used for neutron experiments in J-PARC, Tokai, Japan.

A common data acquisition system for high intensity beam experiments

The J-PARC facility, which will be ready in 2008, is being constructed to perform a number of experiments including nuclear physics, kaon decays and neutrino oscillation. The expected data acquisition rate ranges from 500 Hz to 10 kHz, which is significantly higher than those used in the existing small experiments at KEK. We have developed a new data acquisition system that can be used in a wide range of experiments at J-PARC. The system consists of a KEK-VME crate, a readout platform module and peripheral modules. The readout platform module is highly modularized, having four slots to install daughter cards for digitization and three PCI mezzanine card (PMC) slots for on-board data processing and other purposes. The performance of the platform module and a model setup of the data acquisition system are reported

Status of Superconducting Magnet System for the J-PARC Neutrino Beam Line

A superconducting magnet system for the J-PARC neutrino beam line has been under construction since 2004. The system consists of 14 doublet cryostats; each contains 2 combined function magnets (SCFM). The SCFM uses two single layer left/right asymmetric coils that produce a dipole field of 2.6 T and quadrupole of 19 T/m. The SCFMs had been developed by 2004, mass-produced since 2005, and completed by summer 2008. The system is being installed since Feb. 2008 till the end of 2008. The paper summarizes the system overview including cryogenics and safety peripheries. The paper also reports the production and installation status.

An integrated data acquisition system for J-PARC hadron experiments

The J-PARC hadron experimental facility has now been completed and is starting operation. We plan to use several types of the readout systems based on CAMAC/FERA, VME bus, TKO, and KEK-VME/COPPER at the early stage of J-PARC hadron experiments. Therefore, we need to integrate many different data acquisition readouts. On the other hand, the network has become the most popular inter-subsystem communication method. Most readout systems have network interfaces or a controller which has network interfaces and talk with the TCP/IP protocol. Under this situation, we have developed network-based DAQ software and trigger/tag distribution system for J-PARC hadron experiments. The DAQ software works with a number of simple function processes and they communicate with each other using two pathways that we call DATA PATH and MESSAGE PATH. The detector data are transported through the DATA PATH and the controllable processes are controlled by the messages via the MESSAGE PATH. The trigger/tag distribution system (TDS) works with three module types, Master Trigger Module, Repeater and Receiver Module. The TDS distributes the timing signals such as the trigger and the event tag using a pair of category six standard network cables. The system works well without any critical issues in bench tests. We will use the system in several J-PARC hadron experiments, such as E05, E13 and other subsequent hadron experiments.

Functionality of DAQ-Middleware

Functionality of DAQ-Middleware is presented with an introduction to DAQ-Middleware followed by its features, including a detailed description of DAQ-Components with an example of the architecture, system configuration related to the configuration database and condition database, Web interface, and finally remote booting of DAQ-Components. DAQ-Middleware is already used in experiments at J-PARC (Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex), Tokai, Japan.

DAQ-Middleware: Progress and status

We report on the progress and status of DAQ-Middleware, a software framework for a distributed data acquisition system. We made improvements in DAQ-Middleware and released package (version 1.0.0) in August 2010. We describe here its improvements in performance and the component development method we used. We also report on the current status of DAQ-Middleware for use at the Material and Life Science Experimental Facility (MLF) of the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex (J-PARC).

Performance measurement of DAQ-Middleware

DAQ-Middleware is a software framework of network-distributed data acquisition system. DAQ-Middleware was developed based on Robot Technology Middleware (RT-Middleware), which is an international standard of Object Management Group (OMG) in Robotics. OpenRTM-aist is an implementation of RT-Middleware developed by the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology. New implementation of DAQ-Middleware has been done according to the new OpenRTM-aist released early 2010 while DAQ-Middleware has been improved. Then, we measured the performance of the new DAQ-Middleware compared with previous one. We measured the throughput of DAQ-Middleware on several conditions. We observed improvement of performance in the new DAQ-Middleware.

Modularized pipeline readout electronics for SuperKEKB

To explore a new physics in the flavor sector, we plan the SuperKEKB upgrade with a luminosity of 5times1035 cm-2s-1. To cope with the higher trigger rate up to 30 kHz, and the severe background condition, we develop a new pipelined data acquisition system. The new readout system is designed as a composite of a sub-detector specific part customized to meet the requirements of each sub-detector and a common readout platform part, in order to reduce costs for maintenance and development. The sub-detector specific part should have a signal digitizer synchronized with 42.3 MHz reduced RF clock, a level-1 pipeline buffer to hold data for trigger delay time of 3-5 mus, and a communication logic to the trigger system in a fixed protocol. These functions are implemented on a 76times186 mm2 sized module. A 17-bit TDC module that handles 24 channels in parallel has been developed for the drift chamber readout of SuperBelle in a low luminosity stage. A readout system test with TDC emulator modules mounted on the common platform shows that the new readout system works at a more than 30 kHz input trigger rate.