Abstract
The upgrade of the particle detectors for the HL-LHC or for future colliders requires an extensive program of tests to qualify different detector prototypes with dedicated test beams. A common data-acquisition system, H4DAQ, was developed for the H4 test beam line at the North Area of the CERN SPS in 2014 and it has since been adopted in various applications for the CMS experiment and AIDA project. Several calorimeter prototypes and precision timing detectors have used our system from 2014 to 2017. H4DAQ has proven to be a versatile application and has been ported to many other beam test environments. H4DAQ is fast, simple, modular and can be configured to support various kinds of setup. The functionalities of the DAQ core software are split into three configurable finite state machines: data readout, run control, and event builder. The distribution of information and data between the various computers is performed using ZEROMQ (0MQ) sockets. Plugins are available to read different types of hardware, including VME crates with many types of boards, PADE boards, custom front-end boards and beam instrumentation devices. The raw data are saved as ROOT files, using the CERN C++ ROOT libraries. A Graphical User Interface, based on the python gtk libraries, is used to operate the H4DAQ and an integrated data quality monitoring (DQM), written in C++, allows for fast processing of the events for quick feedback to the user. As the 0MQ libraries are also available for the National Instruments LabVIEW program, this environment can easily be integrated within H4DAQ applications.