Design and Simulation of Pixel Layout and Data Processing Algorithms for the DEEP Instrument

Abstract

A team of researchers at Birkeland Centre for Space Science is developing an instrument that is able to measure particle precipitation into the atmosphere. The instrument consist of both electron and proton detectors, hence the name Distribution of Energetic Electron and Proton (DEEP) instrument. This thesis initiates and specifies the functions of the Digital Signal Processing (DSP) needed for the instrument. This works covers the design and development of the three main DSP functions; the coincidence check, data binning and data packet. Coincidence check is used to determine the energy of the incoming particle and will be used to determine the direction of the incoming particle (Front-Back or Back-Front). Data binning is used to reduce the data size and make it possible to transfer the data with a satellite link, and the required bin sizes are proposed. As part of the packet definition, the structure of the electron and proton payload data packet is specified, and the payload data sizes are calculated based on various energy channels. GATE simulations are used to investigate the electron scattering. A total of 7 distinct DEEP relevant geometries were designed, and for each geometry a total of 7 simulations were computed with energies ranging from 30 to 1920 keV. A complete GATE simulation guide for the DEEP instrument is written as well. It was uncovered that scattering, out of a pixel, increases with energy of the incoming electron. At low energies this was negligible. At higher energies, scattering caused problems when evaluating the readout. To manage this at higher energies a combination of super pixels and a wolfram-mask was designed. By using the mask, significant improvement were observed at higher energies, and some improvement were observed at lower energies.