Gated integrator PXI-DAQ system for Thomson scattering diagnostics

Gated Integrator (GI) PXI based data acquisition (DAQ) system has been designed and developed for the ease of acquiring fast Thomson Scattered signals (∼50 ns pulse width). The DAQ system consists of in-house designed and developed GI modules and PXI-1405 chassis with several PXI-DAQ modules. The performance of the developed system has been validated during the SST-1 campaigns. The dynamic range of the GI module depends on the integrating capacitor (Ci) and the modules have been calibrated using 12 pF and 27 pF integrating capacitors. The developed GI module based data acquisition system consists of sixty four channels for simultaneous sampling using eight PXI based digitization modules having eight channels per module. The error estimation and functional tests of this unit are carried out using standard source and also with the fast detectors used for Thomson scattering diagnostics. User friendly Graphical User Interface (GUI) has been developed using LabVIEW on Windows platform to control and acquire the Thomson scattering signal. A robust, easy to operate and maintain with low power consumption, having higher dynamic range with very good sensitivity and cost effective DAQ system is developed and tested for the SST-1 Thomson scattering diagnostics.