A new digital beam position and phase measurement implementation based on a field programmable gate array for the...

Area of Science:

• Accelerator Physics
• Instrumentation and Measurement

Background:

• Accurate beam position and phase measurement are critical for controlling and protecting high-intensity heavy-ion accelerators.
• Existing systems may face limitations in resolution, processing speed, or adaptability to varying beam conditions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To design and evaluate a new digital beam position and phase measurement (BPM) system for an ion-Linac accelerator.
• To achieve high precision in beam position and phase determination using advanced digital signal processing.

Main Methods:

• Development of a digital BPM system utilizing a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) for data acquisition and signal processing.
• Simultaneous retrieval and analysis of fundamental and second harmonic signals from BPM electrodes.
• Implementation of in-phase and quadrature demodulation for position and phase calculation.
• Integration of reconfigurable filters for measuring short beam pulse lengths.

Main Results:

• Achieved phase resolution better than 0.2° (-60 dBm) and 0.03° (-45 dBm).
• Position resolution better than 30 μm (-60 dBm), improving to 7 μm at higher power levels (-45 dBm).
• Algorithm execution time of 3.4 µs, enabling fast reaction times for machine protection systems.

Conclusions:

• The newly designed digital BPM system demonstrates superior performance in resolution and speed.
• The system's rapid processing capabilities are suitable for critical machine protection applications in high-intensity accelerators.
• Laboratory and online proton beam tests validate the prototype's effectiveness.