Development of a High Sampling Rate Data Acquisition System Working in a High Pulse Count Rate Region for Radiation Diagnostics in Nuclear Fusion Plasma Research

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper presents the development of high sampling rate data acquisition system to be deployed in high pulse count region for radiation diagnostics. I have the following comments/concerns regarding the work. 

1.      The paper novelty is not clear, high sampling rate data acquisition systems are readily available in the market and can be tweaked for use in high pulse count region.

2.      It is not clear how the system has been assembled. Is it a combination of the shelf components or the authors have developed the circuitry from scratch?

3.      How was the software interface developed? Again, did the author developed it or used any off the shelf software?

Author Response

Thank you very much for your reviewing and comments. We would like to answer the questions.

 

1. The paper novelty is not clear, high sampling rate data acquisition systems are readily available in the market and can be tweaked for use in high pulse count region.

 

Thank you for your comment. The novelty of this system is storing the timestamp, pulse shape information, and waveform, simultaneously. We added the feature in the abstract and text. We added the sentences to show why the waveform is important from L61 to L81.

 

2. It is not clear how the system has been assembled. Is it a combination of the shelf components or the authors have developed the circuitry from scratch?

 

We are sorry that this part is unclear. The system board was fabricated by Techno AP. The FPGA logic was co-developed. The interface SiTCP was chosen because of relatively easy to develop. We added that “The design of the data acquisition board was done by Techno AP.” in L104 and “After finishing data acquisition, the stored data were transferred to the PC via 1000 Base-T ethernet using the SiTCP. The data acquisition board is controlled through the TCP connection.” in L132.

 

3. How was the software interface developed? Again, did the author developed it or used any off the shelf software?

 

The interface is a TCP-based connection using SiTCP. We controlled by the original software in the test measurement. We added “The data is stored into the PC using the original software.” in L158. In LHD experiment the system was controlled by the LHD control system named LABCOM. We added the sentence “Then, the data are stored in LHD data storage and uploaded to the open access server” in L226.

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper presents a proposal for a high-speed data acquisition system. However, the authors do not show the novelty or contribution in a clear enough manner. Other issues to take into consideration are:

1.- The references are not well formatted.

2.- The quality of the figures is poor.

3.- The results and procedures are poorly presented.

4.- There is no conclusion or discussion of the results. 

5.- The authors do not present a comparisson with other similar works, therefhore, the state of the art is poor for a scientific paper.

I do not recommed this paper for publication in electronics journal.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your reviewing and comments. We would like to answer the questions.

1.- The references are not well formatted.

Thank you. We followed the MDPI format using Endnote software.

2.- The quality of the figures is poor.

We made the pdf file with the highest resolution.

3.- The results and procedures are poorly presented.

According to your comment, we added the description of the procedures.

4.- There is no conclusion or discussion of the results. 

According to your comment, we added the discussion section.

5.- The authors do not present a comparisson with other similar works, therefhore, the state of the art is poor for a scientific paper.

According to your comment, we added the description in introduction.

 

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors!

You touched on a very interesting and topical topic, "corresponding to the spirit of the times."

The study represents a special interest among specialists in the field of nuclear physics, who solve the problems of designing, developing and maintaining diagnostic systems.

But despite the overall positive impression, there are a number of points that you should pay your attention to:

1. Add a sample period value (corresponding to the Pulse Count Rate).

2. On pages 90-91 - what prevented you from applying matrix factorization and fast convergence?

3. Colleagues, we are talking about a scientific article and not about a report on the work of a laboratory installation, so you should not end the paragraph with a picture. It is possible, or rather necessary, to summarize each section.

4. In Section 3, add at least a few sentences about PCM.

5. Separately, focus on scientific novelty, and it would be nice to expand the idea - for what purposes you can still apply the solutions you presented.

6. Section "Results" should contain methodological results.

7. The Discussion section should evaluate the approaches described in the Introduction section.

P.S.: Personally, your work is clear to me, and for the first time I am writing such a comment: it is very pleasant to read such a competent work (right on target, compactly, consistently and concisely).

I am sure that you will succeed!

Good luck with revisions!

Before further promotion of the manuscript, I recommend proofreading it by a native speaker. There are small syntactical errors throughout the text, although this is not critical in terms of breaking up with the high scientific potential of the work.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your reviewing and comments. We would like to answer the questions.

 

 

1. Add a sample period value (corresponding to the Pulse Count Rate).

 

According to your comment, we added the discussion of sample period value in the beginning of section 3 as “If the one million pulses come periodic, the time period between the pulse becomes about one microsecond. However, when we consider the radiation measurement, the pulses come randomly. Sometimes a pulse can come right after another pulse come, but sometimes the time period can come more than one microsecond. Therefore, design of the data acquisition and analysis program becomes complected and should be tested using the real signal.”.

 

2. On pages 90-91 - what prevented you from applying matrix factorization and fast convergence?

 

Sorry. We do not have such a technology.

 

3. Colleagues, we are talking about a scientific article and not about a report on the work of a laboratory installation, so you should not end the paragraph with a picture. It is possible, or rather necessary, to summarize each section.

 

According to your comment, we added the summary on the end of each section.

 

4. In Section 3, add at least a few sentences about PCM.

 

Thank you for your comment. We added the explanation for pulse shape discrimination as “Note that we performed offline analysis of pulse shape discrimination. Because the decay time of the Stilbene detector signal induced by neutron is relatively longer than that induced by gamma ray, we used charge comparison method to discriminate neutron and gamma ray signals. The longer decay time induces the relatively high Q_long/Q_total.”.

 

5. Separately, focus on scientific novelty, and it would be nice to expand the idea - for what purposes you can still apply the solutions you presented.

 

Thank you. We added a short summary in the end of each section.

 

6. Section "Results" should contain methodological results.

 

We changed the result section.

 

7. The Discussion section should evaluate the approaches described in the Introduction section.

 

Thank you. We created a discussion Section and changed the summary session to evaluate the approaches.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for addressing my comments. 

Author Response

Thank you for your kind review.