Acquisition and control in basic and applied physics : methods and means in some instrument development projects

Sammanfattning: Advanced instrumentation for experimental physics, be it basic or applied, involves to an increasing degree, the use of complex analogue and digital electronic components. This is especially true for nuclear and particle physics where massive data acquisition systems are being developed. New measurement systems contain distributed intelligence in the form of systems of microprocessors and fast analogue and digital electronics for amplification, digitisation and signal processing. Developing such systems demands access to and experience with advanced tools for computer aided design.This thesis deals with methodological problems, in connection with some instrument development projects, such as: the use of programmable logic like PALs and FPGAs in the system design, the use of LCAs, their advantages and drawbacks compared to MSI logic or ASICs and the demand of different system tools for designing and testing. Also, the need for structural development methods for complex and large designs is discussed.The following development projects are described: a multichannel analyser interface with direct memory access to the 1BM-PC, a general CAMAC processing array which connects to fast multiple ADC modules using a Macintosh as crate controller, a SCSI based data acquisition for standard NIM ADCs unit with a PC Windows based user environment and an accompanying monitoring interface. Finally, two similar medical instruments are described: an early Positron Emission Tomograph where PROMs were used as processing elements and a design for a new type of Single Photon Emission Computed Tomograph based on a distributed system of LCAs and transputers. The latter is under development while the former is well proven in clinical practice.