A fast, S-Link based Data Acquisition System
This page describes a fast, economical multichannel Data
Aquisition
(DAQ) system built with CERN's S-Link
interface standard, which greatly facilitates fast interfacing from "simple"
digital data sources to standard computer systems. The system is
-
fast: up to 100 MByte/s continuous data rate is supported with current
hardware,
-
economical: As many functions as possible are performed with standard
PC hardware, running the Linux operation system.
The system described here is used for diagnostics of a hot fusion
plasma, investigated at Max-Planck-Institut
für Plasmaphysik (IPP, Garching, Germany) in the ASDEX
Upgrade experiment.
System Overview
Design Considerations, Overview,
Components,
Block
diagram, and Project History
Hardware
In addition to commercially available computer and S-Link hardware, two
custom boards have been developed for the data acquisition system:
FEMCTRL - Front End Motherboard and
Controller (timing, data buffer and system control)
FEMADC - 8 channel ADC board (12-bit,
3.3 Ms/s max.), on-board amplifiers/filters (available soon)
Software
The software is based on the Linux operating system (but should be portable
to the various UNIX-systems)
DAQserver - Data acquisition control
program and library, runs stand-alone, as a TCP/IP server, or linked to
any user application program
Applications
Customizing / Development tools
A separarate page describes tools and tricks used for programmable
logic development.
For performance testing of special time-critical algorithms there is
a specially written Data acquisition benchmark
suite.
Acknowledgements
I'd like to acknowledge the help of several people:
Erik Van der Bij
(CERN), for his continuous and extremely valuable support of the S-link,
Steffen Luitz
(CERN) for making the Autobahn driver available.
Wolfgang Suttrop,
last modification: 8-Jan-2002