An investigation of passive optical networks for India based neutrino observatory

The India-based neutrino observatory (INO) is being designed with an iron calorimeter (ICAL) as the neutrino detector. The ICAL consist of about 30,000 resistive plate chambers (RPCs) at INO which will act as the neutrino detectors. Each RPC is expected to generate data at a maximum of 2.52 Mbps, which will then be multiplexed further at the backplane. We compare a controller area network against a Passive Star Optical Network (PSON), in terms of technical feasibility, optical link budgets and costs. We then characterize the PSON using a microcontroller based application specific hardware.