Smart Sensing and Embedded Computation for Scientific Instruments: From Custom ASICs to Intelligent Readout Systems
Speaker
Soumyajit Mandal
Brookhaven National Laboratory
Title
"Smart Sensing and Embedded Computation for Scientific Instruments: From Custom ASICs to Intelligent Readout Systems "
Abstract
Modern scientific instruments are increasingly limited not by raw sensor performance, but by how efficiently information can be extracted, reduced, and acted upon close to the point of measurement. This talk will present recent work at Brookhaven National Laboratory on custom analog and mixed-signal application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) developed to enable smart sensing and embedded computation in scientific instruments.
After a brief overview of BNL and the Instrumentation Department, the talk will highlight several ASIC-based systems designed for advanced particle physics, nuclear physics, and precision sensing applications, with an emphasis on architectures that integrate low-noise analog front ends, programmable digital logic, and early-stage data reduction. Example projects will include custom front-end ASICs for large detector systems, integrated readout architectures for monolithic pixel sensors, and mixed-signal platforms that support event-driven acquisition and adaptive signal processing.
Building on these examples, the talk will explore emerging directions in instrumentation-aware computation, including embedded machine learning, intelligent trigger and veto generation, and smart readout strategies that reduce data movement while preserving scientific fidelity. These approaches point toward a new generation of scientific instruments in which computation, sensing, and system-level decision-making are tightly co-designed. The talk will conclude with a discussion of how these ideas may shape future detector architectures and open new opportunities for autonomous and data-efficient scientific measurement.
About Speaker
Soumyajit Mandal (Senior Member, IEEE) received the B.Tech. degree from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur, India, in 2002, and the Ph.D. and S.M. degrees in electrical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, in 2004 and 2009, respectively. He was a Research Scientist with Schlumberger-Doll Research, Cambridge, MA (2010–2014); an Assistant Professor with the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (2014–2019); and an Associate Professor with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL (2019–2021). He is currently a member of the Research Staff with the Instrumentation Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY, where he leads the Intelligent Readout and ASIC R&D Research Group.
His research interests include low-power and low-noise electronics, magnetic resonance and ultrasound sensors, hardware–algorithm co-design, and intelligent readout architectures for large-scale scientific experiments. Dr. Mandal has authored over 175 publications in peer-reviewed journals and conferences and has been awarded 27 patents. He was a recipient of the President of India Gold Medal, the MIT Micro-systems Technology Laboratories (MTL) Doctoral Dissertation Award, the T. Keith Glennan Fellowship, and the IIT Kharagpur Young Alumni Achiever Award.