Standardization of trigger-less data-streaming DAQ system in Japan

In particle and nuclear physics experiments, development and standardization of a data acquisition (DAQ) system being scalable from small- to large-scale experiments has great benefit for sharing development resources and improving maintainability in future. To standardize the system, we need to overcome the difference in the trigger system in each experiment.

Recently, a trigger-less data-streaming type DAQ system, which does not require a hardware trigger, spread rapidly through our research field owing to the development of computer technologies. Thus, we are developing the trigger-less DAQ system that is suitable for the standard. The standard system should be simple, scalable, and independent from specific requirements from each experiment. For this purpose, we have developed a simple and lightweight clock synchronization system called MIKUMARI and data-streaming type high-resolution time-to-digital converter (TDC) with a timing resolution of 20 ps. This system provides the clock synchronization independently from accelerator timing and Plug and Play of front-end electronics.

The trigger-less DAQ system requires the software-based event reconstruction and selection, and thus, multi-process-based load balancing is essential for the DAQ software. We have developed a next generation DAQ software called NestDAQ, which supports the semi-automatic generation for multi-end connection topology and load balancing.

In this talk, we would like to report features of our system and beam test results so far and discuss future prospects.