A Systolic Track Finding Trigger Processor

1 Abstract This paper outlines the architecture of a systolic trigger processor for tracking detectors of the jetchamber type, operated inside a solenoidal magnetic field. It outputs the number of tracks and their radius of curvature in less than 10 μs. A detailed description of the constant data flow scheme is given which is maintained thoroughly from the read-out of the drift times up to the final storage of the results in registers and the creation of the trigger signal. The system consists of a preprocessor for timing signals, a Hough transform processor that determines well defined tracks, and an Euler processor that counts their number. This is done by applying the Euler relation to a binary image which is obtained from the Hough transform result by using a suitable threshold. All system components can be partitioned and integrated in field programmable gate arrays.