=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2507/311-315-paper-56
|storemode=property
|title=Raspberry Pi 3 Based Software and Hardware System for Radiation Hardening Testing of Electronic Components
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2507/311-315-paper-56.pdf
|volume=Vol-2507
|authors=Alexander Golunov,Nikolay Gorbunov,Vladimir Karjavin
}}
==Raspberry Pi 3 Based Software and Hardware System for Radiation Hardening Testing of Electronic Components==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2507/311-315-paper-56.pdf
Proceedings of the 27th International Symposium Nuclear Electronics and Computing (NEC’2019)
Budva, Becici, Montenegro, September 30 – October 4, 2019
RASPBERRY PI 3 BASED SOFTWARE AND HARDWARE
SYSTEM FOR RADIATION HARDENING TESTING OF
ELECTRONIC COMPONENTS
A. Golunov, N. Gorbunov, V. Karjavin
Joint Institute for Nuclear Research
E-mail: agolunov@mail.ru
Electronic base, designed for use in high radiation fields, such as particle accelerators, should
be radiation hardened. To study the radiation resistance of such electronic components, various
sources of ionizing radiation are used, with the use of which the components of the systems under
study are subjected to prolonged exposure to fluxes of high-energy particles. This process often takes a
long time, which also ensures the high cost of such research. The study of radiation resistance requires
the creation of specialized research complexes. Such systems make it possible to assess the quality of
the components' performance depending on the radiation dose and weed out elements that do not meet
the radiation resistance criteria for specific tasks at the equipment design stage. The system designed
to test the radiation hardening of electronic components. It is based on Raspberry Pi 3 microcomputer.
Provides web-interface to acquire and express analysis of data taken. System tested in CHARM
facility test area
Keywords: Raspberry Pi 3, radiation resistance, express analysis
Alexander Golunov, Nikolay Gorbunov, Vladimir Karjavin
Copyright © 2019 for this paper by its authors.
Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
311
Proceedings of the 27th International Symposium Nuclear Electronics and Computing (NEC’2019)
Budva, Becici, Montenegro, September 30 – October 4, 2019
1. Introduction
Electronics systems intended for use in conditions of increased ionizing radiation, such as
high-energy accelerators, must have increased radiation resistance to ensure functioning throughout
the entire period of operation. Such radiation conditions are characteristic of accelerator complexes
designed to work with beams of elementary particles in high-energy physics. Also, increased
requirements for radiation resistance [1, 2] are also imposed in other sectors, such as the space and
aviation industries, nuclear energy, medicine, etc.
To study the radiation resistance of such systems, various sources of ionizing radiation are
used, with the help of which the components of the systems under study are exposed to prolonged
exposure to flows of high-energy particles. This process often takes a lot of time, can be performed on
various installations and requires automation.
Thus, the study of radiation resistance requires the creation of specialized research complexes
that allow us to evaluate the reliability of components depending on the dose of radiation.
This article presents a mobile hardware and software system for measuring the characteristics
of electronic components under the influence of ionizing radiation based on the Raspberry Pi3 B
microcomputer.
2. Hardware & Software
The hardware part of the complex is divided into two parts located at a distance of 40 meters
from each other: one is directly installed in the irradiation zone, the second in the access area of
maintenance personnel. The general scheme of the components of the complex is presented in the
figure (Figure 1).
Raspberry Pi 3
Adapter Board
MAX1270
board RADHARD2
40М
Radiation zone
RADHARD1
(PQ7DV10, TPS75901, IL5250)
Figure 1. Schema of hardware part
The central part of the complex is the Raspberry Pi 3 single-board microcomputer. The
microcomputer provides data acquisition from the LVMB board and used for processing and express
analysis, and provides a WEB interface for managing the complex.
The choice of the Raspberry Pi microcomputer is determined by its low cost and wide
capabilities: it is working under the control of the free operating system Raspbian based on Linux
(Debian), low power consumption of the Raspberry Pi 3 can ensure the mobility of the complex when
running on battery power, the availability of wireless access allows organizing remote WEB-
management of the complex.
312
Proceedings of the 27th International Symposium Nuclear Electronics and Computing (NEC’2019)
Budva, Becici, Montenegro, September 30 – October 4, 2019
The elements under study are placed on the RADHARD1 board, the signals from which are
transmitted via the communication line to the RADHARD2 adapter board, which is directly installed
on the LVMB (Low Voltage Monitoring Board) board, which provides signal conversion to a discrete
code.
The LVMB is designed to digitize input voltages and currents. The board has seven
MAX1270 ICs [3], which allows measuring up to 56 analog channels with an accuracy of 12 bits in
the range from 0 to 10V. In addition, eight digital outputs are installed to control signal sources for
emergency shutdown of channels when errors are detected in the studied samples. Reading of
information is carried out on the SPI interface.
The board for mounting the studied elements RADHARD1 is designed for radiation testing of
specific elements. The studied voltage regulators are installed on the board: PQ7DV10, TPS75901,
IL5250. Voltages and currents from the regulators are transmitted to the RADHARD2 adapter board
with an S/UTP (shielded twisted pair) cable over a distance of 40 meters. At the same time, three
identical boards with a connected load of 1 ohm were installed. Board elements and load resistors are
cooled using a rack cooling system with water refrigerant.
Raspberry Pi 3 (OS Raspbian)
MAX1270.py DB Mysql
(ADC readout module)
(storage)
Data analisys (Numpy)
Histogtramming
WEB-
(Matplotlib)
monitoring
WEB-interface
Data representation
Readout control
Figure 2. Schema of software part
The software part (Fig. 2) is implemented under the control of the Raspbian operating system,
which is supplied with the Raspberry Pi 3 single-board microcomputer. The OS is based on Linux
(Debian), which allows using a wide range of software and third-party libraries, as well as using
network protocols for transferring data and external communications. The operating system is
currently under active development, is constantly being improved and takes on new functions. Data
from the MAX1270 chip is received by the reader and entered into the database under MySQL
control, from where it is available for further analysis or for online WEB monitoring. The processed
data becomes available through the WEB-interface in the form of graphs. The reader module is also
controlled via the WEB interface.
For reading data using analog-to-digital converters MAX1270, a module in the Pyhton
language has been developed. The module allows to set the configuration parameters of MAX1270
integrated circuits (measuring range, bit depth, etc.), read data channel or group, control eight digital
outputs, determines the frequency of the ADC polling.
As a data storage, the MySQL database is chosen - a free relational database management
system. The SQL query language (structured query language) allows to filter, group samples
according to various criteria (time, measurement number, measurement identifier, etc.)
313
Proceedings of the 27th International Symposium Nuclear Electronics and Computing (NEC’2019)
Budva, Becici, Montenegro, September 30 – October 4, 2019
The received digital data is written to the MySQL database channel-by-channel (ch1, ch2, etc.)
and contain additional fields: Measurement number, Measurement date and time, Measurement
identifier.
To ensure data safety, regular backup of data on a remote server is provided. As a means of
synchronizing files, the rsync program is selected, which is launched through the cron task scheduler.
For data processing external libraries Numpy and Matplotlib are used.
NumPy [4] is a Python programming language library that provides support for large
multidimensional arrays and matrices. It has a large set of high-level mathematical functions for
operations with various arrays. The main object of NumPy is a homogeneous multidimensional array.
This is a multidimensional array of elements (usually numbers) of the same type. By means of the
library, the average value and standard deviation for each read channel are calculated.
Matplotlib is a Python programming language library for visualizing data in two-dimensional
graphics. The resulting images can be used for publication on WEB. For remote control of the data set
created WEB-interface. It allows to execute commands to start a data set, stop a data set, start analysis,
and also provides access to already processed information. The presence of the WEB interface allows
operators from remote monitoring centers [5] to have quick access to experimental data and to control
the process of data collection.
Implemented overlapping list of events with reference to time. To do this, create a text file
format “time: event” (Fig. 3).
The presence of such file allows combining the collected data and notes in a time schedule.
Figure 3. An example of a change in the characteristics of an element under the influence of ionizing
radiation
Thus, the created software package allows quickly evaluate the data being collected, find the
moment of degradation onset depending on the radiation dose received, manage the data set, etc.
The operability of the developed software and hardware complex was tested during the
radiation hardness tests of electronic components at the CHARM [6] (Cern High-energy AcceleRator
test facility) installation at CERN.
3. Conclusion
The mobile hardware-software complex for measuring the characteristics of electronic
components under conditions of exposure to ionizing radiation has been created, tested and applied,
which provides data reception, storage, processing and quick analysis of measurement results,
visualization.
The complex was tested on the existing experimental CHARM (CERN) installation, during
which three types of linear voltage regulators were investigated.
314
Proceedings of the 27th International Symposium Nuclear Electronics and Computing (NEC’2019)
Budva, Becici, Montenegro, September 30 – October 4, 2019
By the totality of characteristics, the created complex can be applied in various fields of
science, such as automatic control systems, measuring devices powered by batteries, industrial control
systems, data acquisition systems, robotics, medical equipment, etc.
References
[1] CMS Collaboration, “Technical Proposal for the Phase-II Upgrade of the CMS Detector” /
Contardo, D (ed.) (Lyon U.) ; Klute, M (ed.) (MIT) ; Mans, J (ed.) (Minnesota U.) ; Silvestris, L (ed.)
(INFN, Bari) ; Butler, J (ed.) (Fermilab), CERN-LHCC-2015-010 ; LHCC-P-008 ; CMS-TDR-15-02.
- Geneva : CERN, 2015. - 469 p. (Technical Proposal ; 15.2)
[2] CMS Collaboration, “The Phase-2 Upgrade of the CMS Muon Detectors”, CERN-LHCC-2017-
012 ; CMS-TDR-016. - 2017.
[3] Datasheet MAX1270, https://datasheets.maximintegrated.com/en/ds/1911.pdf
[4] Idris I. NumPy Beginner's Guide: Build efficient, high-speed programs using the high-
performance NumPy mathematical library, Birmingham : Packt Publ., 2015.
[5] A. Golunov et al., "The JINR CMS Remote Operation Center", Phys. Part. Nucl. Lett., 10 (2013)
81–84, PEPAN Letters, 10 №1(178) (2013) с.130-134.
[6] J. Mekki, M. Brugger, R. Alia, A. Thornton, N. Dos Santos Mota and S. Danzeca, "CHARM: A
Mixed Field Facility at CERN for Radiation Tests in Ground, Atmospheric, Space and Accelerator
Representative Environments," IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci., vol. 63, no. 4, pp. 2106-2114, 2016.
315