Design and Performance of the Data Acquisition System for the NA61/SHINE Experiment at CERN

This paper describes the hardware, firmware and software systems used in data acquisition for the NA61/SHINE experiment at the CERN SPS accelerator. Special emphasis is given to the design parameters of the readout electronics for the 40m^3 volume Time Projection Chamber detectors, as these give the largest contribution to event data among all the subdetectors: events consisting of 8bit ADC values from 256 timeslices of 200k electronic channels are to be read out with ~100Hz rate. The data acquisition system is organized in "push-data mode", i.e. local systems transmit data asynchronously. Techniques of solving subevent synchronization are also discussed.Comment: 14 pages, 13 figure

An FPGA-based real-time event sampler

This paper presents the design and FPGA-implementation of a sampler that is suited for sampling real-time events in embedded systems. Such sampling is useful, for example, to test whether real-time events are handled in time on such systems. By designing and implementing the sampler as a logic analyzer on an FPGA, several design parameters can be explored and easily modified to match the behavior of different kinds of embedded systems. Moreover, the trade-off between price and performance becomes easy, as it mainly exists of choosing the appropriate type and speed grade of an FPGA family

B.O.G.G.L.E.S.: Boundary Optical GeoGraphic Lidar Environment System

The purpose of this paper is to describe a pseudo X-ray vision system that pairs a Lidar scanner with a visualization device. The system as a whole is referred to as B.O.G.G.L.E.S. There are several key factors that went into the development of this system and the background information and design approach are thoroughly described. B.O.G.G.L.E.S functionality is depicted through the use of design constraints and the analysis of test results. Additionally, many possible developments for B.O.G.G.L.E.S are proposed in the paper. This indicates that there are various avenues of improvement for this project that could be implemented in the future

PERFORMANCE STUDY OF AD HOC WIRELESS LAN FOR MULTIMEDIA STREAMING APPLICATIONS

Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) provides high-speed and cable-free access for computer-to-computer information transfer within the coverage range. The optional feature of WLAN is ad hoc, which allows the network to be formed and deformed without the need of system administration or access point. Multimedia streaming through WLAN allows users to download and play a small chunk of the multimedia file simultaneously. An ad hoc base wireless network is used in this project rather than infrastructure base due to the simpler architecture, cheaper set up cost of ad hoc network and no system administrator required. Unlike file sharing, streaming will not download the whole file. Streaming can be used for multimedia distribution without users having the illegal copies of the file. In this project, a multimedia file is to be streamed, but not downloaded, through the WLAN without passing through any access point. The host computer broadcast the multimedia file using "media server configurator" while the client computer streamed from the host computer using "streaming media player". Multihop streaming allows a node that is totally out of the coverage range to stream from the host computer, using the bridge as a passage. The streaming of the multimedia file is seamless and smooth within the ad hoc network. A node that is out of the coverage range can stream from the host computer by using the multi-hop concept although the distance between the host and the client does affect the performance. In multi-hop wireless network, the streaming process is at its best when the bridge is about 3 meters away from the receiving node

Networking Heterogeneous Microcontroller based Systems through Universal Serial Bus

Networking heterogeneous embedded systems is a challenge. Every distributed embedded systems requires that the network is designed specifically considering the heterogeneity that exits among different Microcontroller based systems that are used in developing a distributed embedded system. Communication architecture, which considers the addressing of the individual systems, arbitration, synchronisation, error detection and control etc., needs to be designed considering a specific application. The issue of configuring the slaves has to be addressed. It is also important that the messages, flow of the messages across the individual ES systems must be designed. Every distributed embedded system is different and needs to be dealt with separately. This paper presents an approach that addresses various issues related to networking distributed embedded systems through use of universal serial bus communication protocol (USB). The approach has been applied to design a distributed embedded that monitors and controls temperatures within a Nuclear reactor system