Outdoor Field Experience with Autonomous RPC Based Stations

TL;DR

This paper reports on the development and outdoor testing of autonomous Resistive Plate Chamber stations for cosmic ray detection, demonstrating stable operation with dynamic high voltage adjustment in real environmental conditions.

Contribution

It introduces a new autonomous RPC station design capable of outdoor deployment with stable operation and dynamic high voltage adjustment, expanding the applicability of RPCs in large-area cosmic ray experiments.

Findings

Successful outdoor operation of autonomous RPC stations.

Stable performance with dynamic high voltage adjustment.

Enhanced resilience to environmental conditions.

Abstract

In the last two decades Resistive Plate Chambers were employed in the Cosmic Ray Experiments COVER-PLASTEX and ARGO/YBJ. In both experiments the detectors were housed indoors, likely owing to gas distribution requirements and the need to control environment variables that directly affect RPCs operational stability. But in experiments where Extended Air Shower (EAS) sampling is necessary, large area arrays composed by dispersed stations are deployed, rendering this kind of approach impossible. In this situation, it would be mandatory to have detectors that could be deployed in small standalone stations, with very rare opportunities for maintenance, and with good resilience to environmental conditions. Aiming to meet these requirements, we started some years ago the development of RPCs for Autonomous Stations. The results from indoor tests and measurements were very promising, both concerning performance and stability under very low gas flow rate, which is the main requirement for Autonomous Stations. In this work we update the indoor results and show the first ones concerning outdoor stable operation. In particular, a dynamic adjustment of the high voltage is applied to keep gas gain constant.