CAMAC (Computer Aided Measurement and Control) is a mature standard for date requisition systems, and is widely used in nuclear and high-energy physics as well as other areas of research and engineering. The basic design of the standard was completed before 1970. The specifications reflect the state of electronics and computer technology at that time. Nevertheless, new CAMAC modules continue to be developed. CAMAC is an easy-to-use low-cost data acquisition system. The wide range of more variety of modules available is one of CAMACs great advantages; however, its disadvantage is speed. The maximum transfer rate of 3 Megabytes per second is simply too slow for many applications. A compatible extension to the CAMAC dataway bandwidth will be developed in this project. This will increase the data acquisition speed but to as much as 60 Megabytes per second in a series of steps starting at 6 Megabytes per second (from 2 to 20 times faster than standard CAMAC). During Phase 1, the feasibility of extension will be verified, and several possible implementations will be explored by building simple prototypes and testing them with existing CAMAC systems. This will lead to an improved definition of the planned extension and better understanding of the maximum data rates obtainable. A proposal will be presented to the Nuclear Instruments Committee, to include this extension in the official CAMAC standard Anticipated results and
Potential Commercial Applications: CAMAC could become suitable for a wide range of applications, and no longer limited to be limited to low rate experiments. This could extend the life of the CAMAC standard and provide immediate economic benefit to the many laboratories and university groups (both in the US and around the world) that have a large investment in CAMAC. This widening of the applicability of CAMACcould have substantial commercial benefit to the many firms producing CAMAC hardware.
