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15th IEEE NPSS Real Time Conference (RTC) was held at Fermilab from
April 29th to May 4th 2007. The conference was chaired by Margaret
Votava, from the Computing Division/Experiment Online Support of
Fermilab. There were 187 participants, which is about the ideal
number for a conference that traditionally has no parallel sessions.
There was a large representation from the 4 major CERN experiments,
reflecting the exceptional activity associated with the imminent
startup of the LHC. There was also a significant increase of plasma
related presentations, most of them associated with ITER.
The day before the conference, there was a workshop about the ATCA
standard (Advanced Telecom Computing Architecture). This was very
well attended, with 87 participants. This standard from the telecom
industry is being considered very seriously as a candidate for the
next generation of “high availability” control and DAQ
instrumentation in physics.
One of the highlights of this conference is the attribution of the
CANPS award. This award is given in recognition to someone who has
made a significant contribution to the fields of interest represented
by CANPS. In this particular case, it was “for sustained and
innovative entrepreneurship in computerized data acquisition and
control systems.” A plaque and check comprising the award,
were presented to Dr. Peter Clout by Dr. Richard Kouzes during the
conference dinner. Dr. Peter Clout (see AWARDS section also) has
been an innovative leader in the area of real-time computerized
data acquisition and control systems for over 35 years. During much
of this time, Peter has been an active leader for the IEEE NPSS
and for CANPS. He worked on the development and implementation of
the CAMAC hardware standard, was project leader at Los Alamos National
Laboratory in the 1980s, and served as president of NPSS. At the
head of Vista Control Systems, he developed a diverse customer base
in the military, research and industrial sectors for his control
and data acquisition system product. Peter was also awarded the
NPSS Shea Award for service to the Society in 2002.
There were also three awards presented for “outstanding student
poster or oral papers.” The two best papers receive both a
cash award and a certificate. The runner up receives a certificate.
The first award was presented to Joel Riendeau, from “Université
de Sherbrooke,” for a paper entitled High Rate Photon Counting
CT Using Parallel Digital PET Electronics. The second award went
to Alexander Mann, from the “Technischen Universität
München” for a paper entitled Advanced TCA based Sampling
ADC Data Acquisition System. The third prize was granted to Jose
Maria Monzo Ferrer, from “Universidad Politecnica de Valencia,”
for a paper entitled Improved digital pulse height estimation for
PET detectors using LMS adaptive filters.
A large fraction of the CANPS committee members were present at
the conference and Margaret Votava organized the usual CANPS post
conference committee meeting. One of the objectives of this meeting
is preparation for the next Real Time conference. The committee
recommended that the next RT conference (2009) be held in Asia.
There were very serious and attractive proposals both from Japan
and mainland China. Since it will be the first time the conference
will be held in Asia, the committee asked for supplementary information
before it takes a final decision about the site. We expect that
the final decision will be taken in September.
Jean-Pierre Martin, chair of the Computer Applications in Nuclear
and Plasma Science Technical Committee who can be reached at the
University of Montreal, RJA Lévesque Laboratory, Montreal
(QC), Canada H3C 3J7. Phone +1 514 343 7340; e-mail: jpmartin@lps.umontreal.ca
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