Developing Control and Monitoring Software for the Data Acquisition System of the COMPASS Experiment at CERN

Abstract

This paper focuses on the analysis, design and development of software for the new data acquisition system of the COMPASS experiment at CERN. In this system, the data flow is controlled by custom hardware; the software will therefore be used only for run control and for monitoring. The requirements on the software have been analyzed, and the functionality of the system has been defined. The system consists of several distributed nodes; communication between the nodes is based on a custom protocol and a DIM library. A minimal version of the system has already been implemented. Preliminary results of performance and stability tests have shown that the system fulfills the defined requirements, and is stable. In the next phase of development, the system will be tested on the real hardware. It is expected that the system will be ready for deployment in 2014.