Acquisition system for the "Line 5" stage of the ANTARES project

The goal of the ANTARES project (Astronomy with a Neutrino Telescope and Abyss environmental RESearch) is the study of high energy cosmic neutrinos with a very large deep sea detector. "Line 5" is one of the first steps in the feasibility study of this detector. It consists of a string of 300 m, immersed in deep water, partly equipped with 8 PMTs and the associated electronics, connected to the shore by an electro-optical cable transmitting time-multiplexed analog signals, slow control monitoring and power. This paper describes the acquisition system layout. It is based on conventional solutions with front-end electronics made of NFM and CAMAC modules controlled by a VME system. The software to drive the PMT acquisition is homemade. An EPICS system (Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System) is used to store in its real-time database the acquisition and the slow-control data A set of EPICS compliant tools is used on UNIX workstations to control the acquisition, monitor the data and supervise the slow control. The line will be deployed in the Mediterranean sea during summer 99.