A Flexible High Speed Data Acquisition System for Real-Time Measurements and Data Analysis

Interfield Research Associates (IRA), in cooperation with the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) Aeronautics Department,, and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Plasma Physics Department has developed a flexible, high throughput data acquisition system for use with basic scientific experiments. The data acquisition system utilizes a high speed computer network, developed at Caltech, and an interactive data acquisition software system. developed by Interfield Research Associates. The system is powerful enough to handle the complex measurements required by research projects at Caltech and UCLA; at the same time it is simple enough to enable a person with little computer experience to perform sophisticated experiments.