Using A PCI Scheduler And A Dynamic Threshold To Enhance A High Speed Readout System

Abstract

Data acquisition systems are products and/or processes used to collect information to document or analyze some phenomenon. The Readout System is one of the most important parts of a data acquisition system. The Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus has been used widely in current Readout systems because of its high efficiency and low cost. In this paper, we focus on the software design to improve PCI throughput. The new Readout system software is designed and developed based on the Black Board Communication Architecture and Multi Agent Theory. A PCI Scheduler is used for distributing the PCI resources by dynamically updating the priorities of the agents. A dynamically updated threshold is also used in this system to continually adjust the packet size to increase throughput. Our experimental results show that the agent-based Readout software can dramatically improve the system throughput.