1. DAQ Software Support for PSEC at ANL and MTEST
PSEC group meeting
Talk Presented 8 April, 2008
Ed May
HEP Division
Argonne National Laboratory

2. Goals
Design and implement Linux based DAQ system for Lecroy FERA based CAMAC system to readout and store data from 4 MCP-PH in Time-of-Flight test beam.
Two systems
Small 2 MCP-PH system for testing and development at ANL, using FERA camac, Wiener CC-USB serial camac interface.
Larger complete system to support 4 MCP-PH and beam readout which works in MTEST computer and camac environment. This using the JY411 parallel highway.
Both should use the common MTEST DAQ software framework and software with the only differences be the CAMAC driver and camac list readout. Nearline readback of stored data should read both systems.

3. Issues – 20 questions
The 20 questions have large overlap with John’s presentation, so will not repeat duplicates.
What is data to be captured?
MCP-PM
Beam related data eg wire-chamber, scalers …
Special test or calibration data
How much data? Per spill, Per run, Per conditions…
At what rate?
What online and/or nearline monitoring is required?
Online: event dump, scaler prints, fixed raw histograms, end-of-run stats
Nearline: read back of disk stored data during run and after EOR, user driven simple analysis based on ?. Makes Ntuples for Offline analysis

4. Issues continued Figure of merits:
Can full DAQ system reliably reach required electronic resolution of 1-2 psec
At what beam event/trigger rate eg ~10KHz
What is the availability of MTEST computing systems available for software and hardware testing before the June test-beam run?
What are lead-time issues:
Is all DAQ hardware in hand?
Document the “data record”, review by group
Prepare time-line.
Who are the principal consumers of the disk data? Are there offline and re-analysis issues after the test-beam ends.