Shown above is a schematic view of the HADES detector system.  The system is divided into 6 identical sectors surrounding the beam axis; the picture above shows a two-dimensional slice to demonstrate HADES' large angular acceptance, which stretches between 16 and 88 degrees.  HADES is comprised of the following components:

• A diamond START detector, composed of two identical 8-strip diamond detectors of octagonal shape placed 75 cm downstream respectively 75 cm upstream of the HADES target.
   
• A Ring Imaging Cherenkov (RICH) gas radiator for electron identification, covering the full azimuthal range.  The high angular resolution of a RICH is needed to assure that the lepton identification can be assigned to the corresponding lepton track.
   
• Two sets of Multiwire Drift Chambers (MDC) before and after the magnetic field region for tracking.  Besides precise determination of lepton trajectories, event characterization via charged particle momentum and angular distributions is obtained from these detectors.
   
• A superconducting toroidal magnet with 6 coils in separate vacuum chambers.  The coil cases are aligned with the frames of the MDC's to reduce dead space in the spectrometer.  The magnet provides the momentum kick necessary to obtain charged particle momenta with a resolution of about 1%.
   
• A multiplicity/electron trigger array consisting of granular pre-shower detectors at forward angles below 45° and two walls of scintillators: the time-of-flight wall (TOF) at angles above 45° and the TOFINO wall at angles below 45°.