Field Data Acquisition Technologies for Iowa Transportation Agencies, HR-366 August 1994

This report describes the results of the research project investigating the use of advanced field data acquisition technologies for lowa transponation agencies. The objectives of the research project were to (1) research and evaluate current data acquisition technologies for field data collection, manipulation, and reporting; (2) identify the current field data collection approach and the interest level in applying current technologies within Iowa transportation agencies; and (3) summarize findings, prioritize technology needs, and provide recommendations regarding suitable applications for future development. A steering committee consisting oretate, city, and county transportation officials provided guidance during this project. Technologies considered in this study included (1) data storage (bar coding, radio frequency identification, touch buttons, magnetic stripes, and video logging); (2) data recognition (voice recognition and optical character recognition); (3) field referencing systems (global positioning systems [GPS] and geographic information systems [GIs]); (4) data transmission (radio frequency data communications and electronic data interchange); and (5) portable computers (pen-based computers). The literature review revealed that many of these technologies could have useful applications in the transponation industry. A survey was developed to explain current data collection methods and identify the interest in using advanced field data collection technologies. Surveys were sent out to county and city engineers and state representatives responsible for certain programs (e.g., maintenance management and construction management). Results showed that almost all field data are collected using manual approaches and are hand-carried to the office where they are either entered into a computer or manually stored. A lack of standardization was apparent for the type of software applications used by each agency--even the types of forms used to manually collect data differed by agency. Furthermore, interest in using advanced field data collection technologies depended upon the technology, program (e.g.. pavement or sign management), and agency type (e.g., state, city, or county). The state and larger cities and counties seemed to be interested in using several of the technologies, whereas smaller agencies appeared to have very little interest in using advanced techniques to capture data. A more thorough analysis of the survey results is provided in the report. Recommendations are made to enhance the use of advanced field data acquisition technologies in Iowa transportation agencies: (1) Appoint a statewide task group to coordinate the effort to automate field data collection and reporting within the Iowa transportation agencies. Subgroups representing the cities, counties, and state should be formed with oversight provided by the statewide task group. (2) Educate employees so that they become familiar with the various field data acquisition technologies.

Multichannel Remote Data Acquisition and Analysing Systems For Fisheries / Environmental Investigations

Remote Data acquisition and analysing systems developed for fisheries and related environmental studies have been reported. It consists of three units. The first one namely multichannel remote data acquisition system is installed at the remote place powered by a rechargeable battery. It acquires and stores the 16 channel environmental data on a battery backed up RAM. The second unit called the Field data analyser is used for insitue display and analysis of the data stored in the backed up RAM. The third unit namely Laboratory data analyser is an IBM compatible PC based unit for detailed analysis and interpretation of the data after bringing the RAM unit to the laboratory. The data collected using the system has been analysed and presented in the form of a graph. The system timer operated at negligibly low current, switches on the power to the entire remote operated system at prefixed time interval of 2 hours.Data storage at remote site on low power battery backedupRAM and retrieval and analysis of data using PC are the special i ty of the system. The remote operated system takes about 7 seconds including the 5 second stabilization time to acquire and store data and is very ideal for remote operation on rechargeable bat tery. The system can store 16 channel data scanned at 2 hour interval for 10 days on 2K backed up RAM with memory expansion facility for 8K RAM.

The Schenberg data acquisition and analysis: results from its first commissioning run

The Mario Schenberg gravitational wave detector has started its commissioning phase at the Physics Institute of the University of Sao Paulo. We have collected almost 200 h of data from the instrument in order to check out its behavior and performance. We have also been developing a data acquisition system for it under a VXI System. Such a system is composed of an analog-to-digital converter and a GPS receiver for time synchronization. We have been building the software that controls and sets up the data acquisition. Here we present an overview of the Mario Schenberg detector and its data acquisition system, some results from the first commissioning run and solutions for some problems we have identified.

Measurement of the inclusive jet cross section in proton-proton collisions at root out s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector

The dominant process in hard proton-proton collisions is the production of hadronic jets.rnThese sprays of particles are produced by colored partons, which are struck out of their confinement within the proton.rnPrevious measurements of inclusive jet cross sections have provided valuable information for the determination of parton density functions and allow for stringent tests of perturbative QCD at the highest accessible energies.rnrnThis thesis will present a measurement of inclusive jet cross sections in proton-proton collisions using the ATLAS detector at the LHC at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV.rnJets are identified using the anti-kt algorithm and jet radii of R=0.6 and R=0.4.rnThey are calibrated using a dedicated pT and eta dependent jet calibration scheme.rnThe cross sections are measured for 40 GeV < pT <= 1 TeV and |y| < 2.8 in four bins of absolute rapidity, using data recorded in 2010 corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 3 pb^-1.rnThe data is fully corrected for detector effects and compared to theoretical predictions calculated at next-to-leading order including non-perturbative effects.rnThe theoretical predictions are found to agree with data within the experimental and theoretic uncertainties.rnrnThe ratio of cross sections for R=0.4 and R=0.6 is measured, exploiting the significant correlations of the systematic uncertainties, and is compared to recently developed theoretical predictions.rnThe underlying event can be characterized by the amount of transverse momentum per unit rapidity and azimuth, called rhoue.rnUsing analytical approaches to the calculation of non-perturbative corrections to jets, rhoue at the LHC is estimated using the ratio measurement.rnA feasibility study of a combined measurement of rhoue and the average strong coupling in the non-perturbative regime alpha_0 is presented and proposals for future jet measurements at the LHC are made.

Measurement of the pair production of b-jets in proton-proton collisions at root out s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector

In hadronischen Kollisionen entstehen bei einem Großteil der Ereignisse mit einem hohen Impulsübertrag Paare aus hochenergetischen Jets. Deren Produktion und Eigenschaften können mit hoher Genauigkeit durch die Störungstheorie in der Quantenchromodynamik (QCD) vorhergesagt werden. Die Produktion von \textit{bottom}-Quarks in solchen Kollisionen kann als Maßstab genutzt werden, um die Vorhersagen der QCD zu testen, da diese Quarks die Dynamik des Produktionsprozesses bei Skalen wieder spiegelt, in der eine Störungsrechnung ohne Einschränkungen möglich ist. Auf Grund der hohen Masse von Teilchen, die ein \textit{bottom}-Quark enthalten, erhält der gemessene, hadronische Zustand den größten Teil der Information von dem Produktionsprozess der Quarks. Weil sie eine große Produktionsrate besitzen, spielen sie und ihre Zerfallsprodukte eine wichtige Rolle als Untergrund in vielen Analysen, insbesondere in Suchen nach neuer Physik. In ihrer herausragenden Stellung in der dritten Quark-Generation könnten sich vermehrt Zeichen im Vergleich zu den leichteren Quarks für neue Phänomene zeigen. Daher ist die Untersuchung des Verhältnisses zwischen der Produktion von Jets, die solche \textit{bottom}-Quarks enthalten, auch bekannt als $b$-Jets, und aller nachgewiesener Jets ein wichtiger Indikator für neue massive Objekte. In dieser Arbeit werden die Produktionsrate und die Korrelationen von Paaren aus $b$-Jets bestimmt und nach ersten Hinweisen eines neuen massiven Teilchens, das bisher nicht im Standard-Modell enthalten ist, in dem invarianten Massenspektrum der $b$-Jets gesucht. Am Large Hadron Collider (LHC) kollidieren zwei Protonenstrahlen bei einer Schwerpunktsenergie von $\sqrt s = 7$ TeV, und es werden viele solcher Paare aus $b$-Jets produziert. Diese Analyse benutzt die aufgezeichneten Kollisionen des ATLAS-Detektors. Die integrierte Luminosität der verwendbaren Daten beläuft sich auf 34~pb$^{-1}$. $b$-Jets werden mit Hilfe ihrer langen Lebensdauer und den rekonstruierten, geladenen Zerfallsprodukten identifiziert. Für diese Analyse müssen insbesondere die Unterschiede im Verhalten von Jets, die aus leichten Objekten wie Gluonen und leichten Quarks hervorgehen, zu diesen $b$-Jets beachtet werden. Die Energieskala dieser $b$-Jets wird untersucht und die zusätzlichen Unsicherheit in der Energiemessung der Jets bestimmt. Effekte bei der Jet-Rekonstruktion im Detektor, die einzigartig für $b$-Jets sind, werden studiert, um letztlich diese Messung unabhängig vom Detektor und auf Niveau der Hadronen auswerten zu können. Hiernach wird die Messung zu Vorhersagen auf nächst-zu-führender Ordnung verglichen. Dabei stellt sich heraus, dass die Vorhersagen in Übereinstimmung zu den aufgenommenen Daten sind. Daraus lässt sich schließen, dass der zugrunde liegende Produktionsmechanismus auch in diesem neu erschlossenen Energiebereich am LHC gültig ist. Jedoch werden auch erste Hinweise auf Mängel in der Beschreibung der Eigenschaften dieser Ereignisse gefunden. Weiterhin können keine Anhaltspunkte für eine neue Resonanz, die in Paare aus $b$-Jets zerfällt, in dem invarianten Massenspektrum bis etwa 1.7~TeV gefunden werden. Für das Auftreten einer solchen Resonanz mit einer Gauß-förmigen Massenverteilung werden modell-unabhängige Grenzen berechnet.

Proposal of a Continuous Read-out Implementation in the ALICE-TOF detector

The main purpose of ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions is the investigation of the QGP. The ALICE experiment situated at the CERN has been specifically designed to study heavy-ion collisions for centre-of-mass energies up to 5.5 per nucleon pair. Extended particle identification capability is one of the main characteristics of the ALICE experiment. In the intermediate momentum region (up to 2.5 GeV/c for pi/K and 4 GeV/c for K/p), charged particles are identified in the ALICE experiment by the Time of Flight (TOF) detector. The ALICE-TOF system is a large-area detector based on the use of Multi-gap Resistive Plate Chamber (MRPC) built with high efficiency, fast response and intrinsic time resolution better than 40 ps. This thesis work, developed with the ALICE-TOF Bologna group, is part of the efforts carried out to adapt the read-out of the detector to the new requirements after the LHC Long Shutdown 2. Tests on the feasibility of a new read-out scheme for the TOF detector have been performed. In fact, the achievement of a continuous read-out also for the TOF detector would not be affordable if one considers the replacement of the TRM cards both for hardware and budget reasons. Actually, the read-out of the TOF is limited at 250 kHz i.e. it would be able to collect up to just a fourth of the maximum collision rate potentially achievable for pp interactions. In this Master’s degree thesis work, I discuss a different read-out system for the ALICE-TOF detector that allows to register all the hits at the interaction rate of 1 MHz foreseen for pp interactions after the 2020, by using the electronics currently available. Such solution would allow the ALICE-TOF detector to collect all the hits generated by pp collisions at 1 MHz interaction rate, which corresponds to an amount four times larger than that initially expected at such frequencies with the triggered read-out system operated at 250 kHz for LHC Run 3. The obtained results confirm that the proposed read-out scheme is a viable option for the ALICE TOF detector. The results also highlighted that it will be advantageous if the ALICE-TOF group also implement an online monitoring system of noisy channels to allow their deactivation in real time.

Compact low-power cortical recording architecture for compressive multichannel data acquisition

This paper introduces an area- and power-efficient approach for compressive recording of cortical signals used in an implantable system prior to transmission. Recent research on compressive sensing has shown promising results for sub-Nyquist sampling of sparse biological signals. Still, any large-scale implementation of this technique faces critical issues caused by the increased hardware intensity. The cost of implementing compressive sensing in a multichannel system in terms of area usage can be significantly higher than a conventional data acquisition system without compression. To tackle this issue, a new multichannel compressive sensing scheme which exploits the spatial sparsity of the signals recorded from the electrodes of the sensor array is proposed. The analysis shows that using this method, the power efficiency is preserved to a great extent while the area overhead is significantly reduced resulting in an improved power-area product. The proposed circuit architecture is implemented in a UMC 0.18 [Formula: see text]m CMOS technology. Extensive performance analysis and design optimization has been done resulting in a low-noise, compact and power-efficient implementation. The results of simulations and subsequent reconstructions show the possibility of recovering fourfold compressed intracranial EEG signals with an SNR as high as 21.8 dB, while consuming 10.5 [Formula: see text]W of power within an effective area of 250 [Formula: see text]m × 250 [Formula: see text]m per channel.

Implementation of intelligent data acquisition system for ITER fast controllers using RIO devices.

A basic requirement of the data acquisition systems used in long pulse fusion experiments is the real time physical events detection in signals. Developing such applications is usually a complex task, so it is necessary to develop a set of hardware and software tools that simplify their implementation. This type of applications can be implemented in ITER using fast controllers. ITER is standardizing the architectures to be used for fast controller implementation. Until now the standards chosen are PXIe architectures (based on PCIe) for the hardware and EPICS middleware for the software. This work presents the methodology for implementing data acquisition and pre-processing using FPGA-based DAQ cards and how to integrate these in fast controllers using EPICS.

A new PET prototype for proton therapy: comparison of data and Monte Carlo simulations

Ion beam therapy is a valuable method for the treatment of deep-seated and radio-resistant tumors thanks to the favorable depth-dose distribution characterized by the Bragg peak. Hadrontherapy facilities take advantage of the specific ion range, resulting in a highly conformal dose in the target volume, while the dose in critical organs is reduced as compared to photon therapy. The necessity to monitor the delivery precision, i.e. the ion range, is unquestionable, thus different approaches have been investigated, such as the detection of prompt photons or annihilation photons of positron emitter nuclei created during the therapeutic treatment. Based on the measurement of the induced β+ activity, our group has developed various in-beam PET prototypes: the one under test is composed by two planar detector heads, each one consisting of four modules with a total active area of 10 × 10 cm2. A single detector module is made of a LYSO crystal matrix coupled to a position sensitive photomultiplier and is read-out by dedicated frontend electronics. A preliminary data taking was performed at the Italian National Centre for Oncological Hadron Therapy (CNAO, Pavia), using proton beams in the energy range of 93–112 MeV impinging on a plastic phantom. The measured activity profiles are presented and compared with the simulated ones based on the Monte Carlo FLUKA package.

Integration of a data acquisition system based on FlexRIO technology with EPICS

EPICS (Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System) lies in a set of software tools and applications which provide a software infrastructure for building distributed data acquisition and control systems. Currently there is an increase in use of such systems in large Physics experiments like ITER, ESS, and FREIA. In these experiments, advanced data acquisition systems using FPGA-based technology like FlexRIO are more frequently been used. The particular case of ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor), the instrumentation and control system is supported by CCS (CODAC Core System), based on RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) operating system, and by the plant design specifications in which every CCS element is defined either hardware, firmware or software. In this degree final project the methodology proposed in Implementation of Intelligent Data Acquisition Systems for Fusion Experiments using EPICS and FlexRIO Technology Sanz et al. [1] is used. The final objective is to provide a document describing the fulfilled process and the source code of the data acquisition system accomplished. The use of the proposed methodology leads to have two diferent stages. The first one consists of the hardware modelling with graphic design tools like LabVIEWFPGA which later will be implemented in the FlexRIO device. In the next stage the design cycle is completed creating an EPICS controller that manages the device using a generic device support layer named NDS (Nominal Device Support). This layer integrates the data acquisition system developed into CCS (Control, data access and communication Core System) as an EPICS interface to the system. The use of FlexRIO technology drives the use of LabVIEW and LabVIEW FPGA respectively. RESUMEN. EPICS (Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System) es un conjunto de herramientas software utilizadas para el desarrollo e implementación de sistemas de adquisición de datos y control distribuidos. Cada vez es más utilizado para entornos de experimentación física a gran escala como ITER, ESS y FREIA entre otros. En estos experimentos se están empezando a utilizar sistemas de adquisición de datos avanzados que usan tecnología basada en FPGA como FlexRIO. En el caso particular de ITER, el sistema de instrumentación y control adoptado se basa en el uso de la herramienta CCS (CODAC Core System) basado en el sistema operativo RHEL (Red Hat) y en las especificaciones del diseño del sistema de planta, en la cual define todos los elementos integrantes del CCS, tanto software como firmware y hardware. En este proyecto utiliza la metodología propuesta para la implementación de sistemas de adquisición de datos inteligente basada en EPICS y FlexRIO. Se desea generar una serie de ejemplos que cubran dicho ciclo de diseño completo y que serían propuestos como casos de uso de dichas tecnologías. Se proporcionará un documento en el que se describa el trabajo realizado así como el código fuente del sistema de adquisición. La metodología adoptada consta de dos etapas diferenciadas. En la primera de ellas se modela el hardware y se sintetiza en el dispositivo FlexRIO utilizando LabVIEW FPGA. Posteriormente se completa el ciclo de diseño creando un controlador EPICS que maneja cada dispositivo creado utilizando una capa software genérica de manejo de dispositivos que se denomina NDS (Nominal Device Support). Esta capa integra la solución en CCS realizando la interfaz con la capa EPICS del sistema. El uso de la tecnología FlexRIO conlleva el uso del lenguaje de programación y descripción hardware LabVIEW y LabVIEW FPGA respectivamente.

Scalable data acquisition for densely instrumented cyber-physical systems

Consider the problem of designing an algorithm for acquiring sensor readings. Consider specifically the problem of obtaining an approximate representation of sensor readings where (i) sensor readings originate from different sensor nodes, (ii) the number of sensor nodes is very large, (iii) all sensor nodes are deployed in a small area (dense network) and (iv) all sensor nodes communicate over a communication medium where at most one node can transmit at a time (a single broadcast domain). We present an efficient algorithm for this problem, and our novel algorithm has two desired properties: (i) it obtains an interpolation based on all sensor readings and (ii) it is scalable, that is, its time-complexity is independent of the number of sensor nodes. Achieving these two properties is possible thanks to the close interlinking of the information processing algorithm, the communication system and a model of the physical world.

Pervasive adaptive data acquisition gateway for critical healthcare

The data acquisition process in real-time is fundamental to provide appropriate services and improve health professionals decision. In this paper a pervasive adaptive data acquisition architecture of medical devices (e.g. vital signs, ventilators and sensors) is presented. The architecture was deployed in a real context in an Intensive Care Unit. It is providing clinical data in real-time to the INTCare system. The gateway is composed by several agents able to collect a set of patients’ variables (vital signs, ventilation) across the network. The paper shows as example the ventilation acquisition process. The clients are installed in a machine near the patient bed. Then they are connected to the ventilators and the data monitored is sent to a multithreading server which using Health Level Seven protocols records the data in the database. The agents associated to gateway are able to collect, analyse, interpret and store the data in the repository. This gateway is composed by a fault tolerant system that ensures a data store in the database even if the agents are disconnected. The gateway is pervasive, universal, and interoperable and it is able to adapt to any service using streaming data.

High-resolution 3D whole-heart coronary MRA: a study on the combination of data acquisition in multiple breath-holds and 1D residual respiratory motion compensation.

OBJECT: To study a scan protocol for coronary magnetic resonance angiography based on multiple breath-holds featuring 1D motion compensation and to compare the resulting image quality to a navigator-gated free-breathing acquisition. Image reconstruction was performed using L1 regularized iterative SENSE. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The effects of respiratory motion on the Cartesian sampling scheme were minimized by performing data acquisition in multiple breath-holds. During the scan, repetitive readouts through a k-space center were used to detect and correct the respiratory displacement of the heart by exploiting the self-navigation principle in image reconstruction. In vivo experiments were performed in nine healthy volunteers and the resulting image quality was compared to a navigator-gated reference in terms of vessel length and sharpness. RESULTS: Acquisition in breath-hold is an effective method to reduce the scan time by more than 30 % compared to the navigator-gated reference. Although an equivalent mean image quality with respect to the reference was achieved with the proposed method, the 1D motion compensation did not work equally well in all cases. CONCLUSION: In general, the image quality scaled with the robustness of the motion compensation. Nevertheless, the featured setup provides a positive basis for future extension with more advanced motion compensation methods.