Plastic scintillator-based hodoscope for the characterization of large-area resistive plate chambers

A scintillator-based hodoscope is fully operational at Nuclear Physics Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (NPD-BARC). It was used for characterizing the resistive plate chambers (RPCs) assembled for the RE4 upgrade for the compact muon solenoid (CMS) experiment, installed during the long shut-down (LS1) using cosmic muons. It has now been employed for R & D related to gas mixtures and glass RPCs for the India-based neutrino observatory (INO) and muon tomography studies. The hodoscope is equipped with gas flow lines, LV, HV and VME-based DAQ with multihit TDCs. CERN-based software was adapted, implemented and along with the cosmic trigger, was used to evaluate the functional parameters for the RPCs, such as efficiency, cluster size etc.