New Readout Scheme for Large Area Timing & Position RPCs

A new readout technique was developed with the primary aim of keeping the number of channels in the front-end electronics as low as possible when scaling up the sensitive area of a Resistive Plate Chamber (RPC). The readout method here presented significantly reduces the dependence between the detector area and the number of electronic channels, without substantial reduction of its performance: a 30 cm x 30 cm double stack multi-gap timing RPC was operated during weeks with cosmic rays, achieving a 2D spatial resolution well below 1 mm and time resolution lower than 100 ps, while its efficiency was kept above 98%.