Data acquisition and instrument control system for neutron spectrometers

A personal computer (PC)-based data acquisition and instrument control system has been developed for neutron spectrometers in Dhruva reactor hall and Guide Tube laboratory. Efforts have been made to make the system versatile so that it can be used for controlling various neutron spectrometers using single end-on detector in step scan mode. Commercially available PC add-on cards have been used for input-output and timer-counter operations. An interface card and DC motor driver card have been developed indigenously. Software for the system has been written in Visual C++ language using MS Windows operating system. This data acquisition and instrument control system is successfully controlling four spectrometers at Dhruva reactor.