A Generic Streaming Software Platform Design for High-Energy Physics Data Acquisition Systems

The data acquisition (DAQ) system is a vital component in the high-energy physics experiment. To reduce duplication of work during development and improving efficiency, D-Matrix-S, a generic platform, has been developed as the software part of a software and hardware combination streaming DAQ system. D-Matrix-S is based on stream processing. Its philosophy is to abstract different tasks in the stream processing and encapsulate them as reusable modules with standard intermodule connectors. Furthermore, customizable DAQ systems could be built by calling appropriate modules and connecting them freely. D-Matrix-S adopts a layered design method during its development. The underlying construction is divided into stream source layers, stream transport layer, and stream processing layer. In the source layer, all types of data sources are streamed to help build a unified transmission model. The transport layer in a software environment achieves efficient and flexible stream transmission through dual shared memory space and plug-in transceivers. As for the processing layer, some common services for high-energy physics experiments such as configurable, generic event building, and multiroot, tree-like slow controlling are provided by the combination of standard modules. This article presents the design philosophy of a generic DAQ system and optimization made to improve flexibility and provides an application of the D-Matrix-S platform in the end.