A fast VME data acquisition system for spill analysis and beam loss measurement

Particle counters perform the control of beam loss and slowly extracted currents at the heavy ion synchrotron (SIS) at GSI. For these devices a new data acquisition system has been developed with the main intention to combine the operating purposes beam loss measurement, spill analysis, spill structure measurement and matrix switching functionality in one single assembly. To provide a reasonable digital selection of counters at significant locations a modular VME setup based on the GSI data acquisition software MBS (Multi Branch System) was chosen. An overview of the design regarding the digital electronics and the infrastructure is given. Of main interest in addition to the high performance of the used hardware is the development of a user-friendly software interface for hardware controls, data evaluation and presentation to the operator