A Spacecraft Multichannel Analyzer for a Multidetector Solid State Detector Array

A newly designed low power spacecraft multichannel analyzer (16 to 256 energy channels) has been developed with the capability of servicing a multidetector array of solid state particle detectors. Various system configurations are presented based on the requirements of a specific detector array concept. The multidetector-multichannel analyzer features controllable energy and time resolution, eleven bit data compression, compactness (13 × 20 cm PC card), and analog display outputs of formatted and accumulated data for CRT display and microprocessor interface. Also featured is the ability of the system to automatically accommodate detector noise level fluctuations (e. g. light, temperature, leakage, amplifier gain, etc.) among individual sensors. Additional parallel processing concepts permit accurate energy coincident logic, fault tolerant redundancy and multiple energetic particle mass analysis.