Data Acquisition System for the UFFO Pathfinder
  The Ultra-Fast Flash Observatory (UFFO) Pathfinder is a payload on the
Russian Lomonosov satellite, scheduled to be launched in November 2011. The
Observatory is designed to detect early UV/Optical photons from Gamma-Ray
Bursts (GRBs). There are two telescopes and one main data acquisition system:
the UFFO Burst Alert & Trigger Telescope (UBAT), the Slewing Mirror Telescope
(SMT), and the UFFO Data Acquisition (UDAQ) system. The UDAQ controls and
manages the operation and communication of each telescope, and is also in
charge of the interface with the satellite. It will write the data taken by
each telescope to the NOR flash memory and sends them to the satellite via the
Bus-Interface system (BI). It also receives data from the satellite including
the coordinates and time of an external trigger from another payload, and
distributes them to two telescopes. These functions are implemented in field
programmable gates arrays (FPGA) for low power consumption and fast processing
without a microprocessor. The UDAQ architecture, control of the system, and
data flow will be presented.
