Contemporary high energy physics experiments, in particular relativistic heavy ion collision experiments, set tough requirements to the design solutions. Fixed target Compressed Baryonic Matter (CBM) experiment at FAIR will be
operating with the gold beam with energy up to 10 GeV/nucleon (SIS100) and 30 GeV/nucleon (SIS300) and intensity up to 109 s-1. Up to 400 (700) charged par
ticles with high angular density will be produced in a central gold-gold collisi
on. Significant part of the presented work is dedicated to the development of detector simulation approaches. A new approach has been developed for fast detector geometry definition with high level of detail. It
provides possibility for fast modification which in turn makes possible the parametric optimization of the ring image Cherenkov detector (RICH) of CBM. The “CATIA-GDML geometry builder” package has been developed which facilitates the process of creation and exchange of detailed geomet
ric models between particle transport simulation software Geant4/ROOT and computer-aided design (CAD) software. This package has been successfully applied to various CBM subsystems. A new readout system has been developed following the advance of the technologies to cope with the
expected data rates. The full-size prototype of CBM RICH and the prototype of its readout system have been studied in beam conditions and in the laboratory. The architecture of the triggerless readout and DAQ system is presented along with the DAQ and analysis software. Description of the experimental setups and detector prototype research results are also presented.