Diagnostic tools for the RPC muon trigger of the CMS detector-design and test beam results

The resistive plate chambers (RPCs) muon trigger electronics of the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) detector performs a number of tasks: synchronization of detector signals, optical data transmission from the detector to the trigger electronics, pattern recognition, muons momentum measurement, selection of track candidates. For the diagnostic purposes, as well as for the calibration and real-time monitoring of the RPC detectors and electronic hardware, a set of flexible diagnostic modules was designed and implemented into the field programmable gate arrays on which the trigger electronics is based. These include: multichannel counters, timing histograms, test pulses generators, diagnostic readout and data spying ("snap-shots" of the data stream). Test results presented in this paper, including tests with Large Hadron Collider-like muon beam, illustrate the performance and the usefulness of these diagnostic modules