DAQ Architecture Design of Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment

The Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment consists of seventeen detectors distributed in three underground experimental halls. Each detector has a separate VME readout crate that contains the trigger and electronics modules. The data acquisition (DAQ) system reads data fragments from electronics and trigger modules and concatenates them into an event in each crate. The DAQ monitors the data quality, merges the event streams from each hall, and records these data to disk. The DAQ architecture is designed as a multi-level system based on the BESIII DAQ and ATLAS TDAQ systems using embedded Linux, VME bus system, advanced commercial computers and distributed network technologies. This paper presents the main DAQ design requirements, and the hardware and software architectures.