EUCALL's Ultrafast Data Acquisition group (UFDAC) have successfully completed their first project Milestone - the definition of data structures and interfaces for which they will create new tools. UFDAC's objective within EUCALL is to deliver ultrafast online image processing, data transfer and injection, as well as processing of digitiser data to satisfy the demands of high rates of data which will be generated optical laser and FEL facilities. For example, European XFEL will generate pulse trains with up to 2700 pulses separated by 220 ns (600 µs total) followed by idle time of 99.4 ms, with a total of 27000 pulses per second.

UFDAC's achievement is the first step in developing new data acquisition technologies which can be used at all of EUCALL's facilities. Scientists from each facility provided information regarding their standard protocols including data formatting, data transfer, programming languages and algorithmic details. The results revealed a strong diversity when comparing the different applications at the partner facilities in details. Bringing these different applications closer together and sharing best practices and common strategies to master the challenges of fast data transfer, injection and analysis is the central aim for UFDAC. UFDAC's Milestone can be read here. 

EUCALL is a network between leading large-scale user facilities for free electron laser, synchrotron and optical laser radiation and their users. Under EUCALL, they work together on their common methodologies and research opportunities, and develop tools to sustain this interaction in the future. EUCALL has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and involves 11 partners from nine countries as well as the networks Laserlab Europe and FELs of Europe during the project period 2015 to 2018.