EUDAQ—a data acquisition software framework for common beam telescopes

Abstract

The development of EUDAQ started as part of the EU-funded Joint Research Activity of the EUDET project "Test Beam Infrastructure" [3,4] in 2005. The goal of the project was the development of a high-precision pixel beam telescope for investigations of the tracking performance of sensor devices. To make this beam telescope a versatile tool for a broad user base and a wide variety of devices, an easy integration strategy for devices under test (DUT) and its DAQ was a priority from the beginning of the project [5]. The interface that was considered to be the most flexible for the user consisted of two separate layers: on the hardware level, the different DAQ systems were to be synchronised using a simple trigger-busy communication protocol; on the software level, the full integration of the DUT into EUDAQ was foreseen as the preferred approach, yet was kept optional.This approach determined the core architecture of EUDAQ [6] which remains today: centralised but distributed core components that communicate with so-called Producers via a custom TCP/IPbased protocol. In this scheme, the latter are responsible for implementing an interface to the individual hardware components, controlling the devices' states and feeding the data into the central data collection unit. Both the beam telescope detector planes and the DUT use the same interface, thus making the framework flexible and independent of any specific hardware. The framework architecture is described in more detail in Section 2.Historically, the most prominent application of EUDAQ is the DAQ of the EUDET-type pixel beam telescopes [7]. They are based on Mimosa26 sensors [8] as telescope planes and a custom-designed trigger logic unit (TLU), the EUDET TLU [9]. Today, the EUDET-type beam telescopes are accessible as common infrastructure at test beam facilities all over the world. This broad availability of beam telescopes combined with the ease-of-use, extensive documentation and user-focus of EUDAQ outlined in Section 3 has led to a large number of successful EUDAQ-based test beam campaigns in the last decade: in Section 4, eleven applications from a wide range of communities are described in more detail.Since the early days of mostly user-driven development, EUDAQ has been moved to a collaborative development model with several active contributors. New features as well as many behind-the-scenes changes such as continuous integration methods paved the road towards the second major version of EUDAQ as briefly outlined in Section 5.

Test beam measurements of an irradiated prototype pixel sensor designed for the CEPC vertex detector

“…The total DUT material budget, including the 250 µm thick DUT sensor, was estimated to be below 0.3% X/X 0 . were synchronized with the Trigger ID and integrated into events within the EUDAQ [12], which was designed as a modular cross-platform data acquisition framework and widely used for beam tests.…”

Performance of production modules of the Belle II pixel detector in a high-energy particle beam

“…These tracks are used for determining the hit efficiency of the DEPFET module. The online data acquisition for all detectors was integrated into the EUDAQ framework [23]. EUDAQ serves as a central run control and data collector for the individual detectors' DAQ systems.…”

EUTelescope: A modular reconstruction framework for beam telescope data

“…For example, from the links between the cluster, the derived hit, and fitted track, an analysis of residual distribution depending on the cluster size is easily possible. Raw data can be converted to the LCIO format using converter plug-ins from the EUDAQ data acquisition framework [27], which requires to link against the EUDAQ library. Conversion can also be performed outside the EUT framework, e.g.…”