Development of a Real-Time Magnetic Field Measurement System for Synchrotron Control
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electronics Article Development of a Real-Time Magnetic Field Measurement System for Synchrotron Control Joseph Vella Wallbank 1,2,* , Maria Amodeo 1,3 , Anthony Beaumont 1, Marco Buzio 1 , Vincenzo Di Capua 1,4, Christian Grech 1,2 , Nicholas Sammut 2 and David Giloteaux 1 1 CERN, European Organization for Nuclear Research, 1 Esplanade des Particules, 1217 Meyrin, Switzerland; [email protected] (M.A.); [email protected] (A.B.); [email protected] (M.B.); [email protected] (V.D.C.); [email protected] (C.G.); [email protected] (D.G.) 2 Faculty of ICT, University of Malta, MSD 2080 Msida, Malta; [email protected] 3 Department of Electronics and Telecommunications (DET), Polytechnic University of Turin, 10129 Turin, Italy 4 Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology (DIETI), University of Naples Federico II, 80100 Naples, Italy * Correspondence: [email protected] Abstract: The precise knowledge of the magnetic field produced by dipole magnets is critical to the operation of a synchrotron. Real-time measurement systems may be required, especially in the case of iron-dominated electromagnets with strong non-linear effects, to acquire the magnetic field and feed it back to various users. This work concerns the design and implementation of a new measurement system of this kind currently being deployed throughout the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) accelerator complex. We first discuss the measurement principle, the general system architecture and the technology employed, focusing in particular on the most critical and Citation: Vella Wallbank, J.; Amodeo, specialized components developed, that is, the field marker trigger generator and the magnetic flux M.; Beaumont, A.; Buzio, M.; integrator. We then present the results of a detailed metrological characterization of the integrator, Di Capua, V.; Grech, C.; Sammut, N.; including the aspects of drift estimation and correction, as well as the absolute gain calibration and Giloteaux, D. Development of a frequency response. We finally discuss the latency of the whole acquisition chain and present an Real-Time Magnetic Field outline of future work to improve the capabilities of the system. Measurement System for Synchrotron Control. Electronics 2021, 10, 2140. https://doi.org/10.3390/ Keywords: B-train; bending dipole; integrator system; real-time magnetic measurements; magnetic electronics10172140 sensors; synchrotron; White Rabbit network Academic Editor: Giulio Antonini Received: 17 July 2021 1. Introduction Accepted: 20 August 2021 In synchrotrons, precise knowledge of the average bending field in the dipole magnets Published: 2 September 2021 is essential for transversal and longitudinal beam control [1]. At CERN, six machines, namely the Low Energy Ion Ring (LEIR), Proton Synchrotron (PS), PS-Booster (PSB), Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS), Antiproton Decelerator (AD) and Extra Low ENergy with regard to jurisdictional claims in Antiproton deceleration ring (ELENA), employ a so-called “B-train” for determining published maps and institutional affil- the dipole field. The name derives from the discrete positive and negative pulse trains iations. used to incrementally distribute the measured field in legacy systems, developed as far back as the 1950s [2]. The B-train measures the average field of a reference magnet and distributes the result in real-time to various other synchrotron sub-systems as part of a feedback control loop or for diagnostic purposes. As an example, the ELENA ring and its Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. B-train reference magnet are shown in Figure1. The typical range of the magnetic field Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. measured goes from about 50 mT to 2 T. The need for a real-time measurement system This article is an open access article stems from the difficulty to predict an accurate value of the average field, a consequence distributed under the terms and of non-linear effects such as eddy currents, saturation and hysteresis inherent to iron- conditions of the Creative Commons dominated magnets, which are dependent upon the magnetic properties of the iron core Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// and the history of the excitation current. The most critical user of the B-train is the creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ Radio Frequency (RF) subsystem, which uses RF cavities to generate the electric field that 4.0/). Electronics 2021, 10, 2140. https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics10172140 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/electronics Electronics 2021, 10, 2140 2 of 29 accelerates or decelerates the beam. The instantaneous magnetic field must be known with high precision to lock the RF frequency to the particle energy, keeping the beam centred in the vacuum chamber. While the pass-band of the bending magnets does not usually exceed a few hundred hertz, the RF system requires a much faster data rate to ensure smooth feedback, e.g., 250 kHz in the PS. The use of B-train systems is not unique to CERN: for instance, similar designs are implemented at ion therapy centres such as the National Centre of Oncological Hadrontherapy (CNAO) [3], MedAustron [4] and the Heidelberg Ion-Beam Therapy Centre (HIT) [5]. For such applications, real-time feedback control of the magnetic field is instrumental, for example, to reduce dead times that would be otherwise spent pre-cycling the magnets to improve their reproducibility. This paper presents a novel B-train system called FIRESTORM (Field In REal-time STreaming from Online Reference Magnets), developed to replace the existing systems in the context of a site-wide, long-term consolidation project. FIRESTORM has been designed to cope with the High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider upgrade, which will require higher beam intensity and improved beam control throughout the injector chain [6]. After an extensive, successful test phase [7], deployment is currently ongoing across the CERN complex with the new systems expected to be fully operational for the upcoming LHC physics run. In Sections2 and3 of this work, we discuss the broad measurement principle and overall architecture of the system. Section4 describes the custom electronic components implemented. In Section5 , we present the results of a test campaign focused on the performance of the integrator, with measurements of the overall latency of the system given in Section6. Finally, in Section7, we provide our concluding remarks and outline future work. Figure 1. (a) The ELENA ring B-train reference magnet, equipped with an integral, curved induction coil and an NMR probe placed at the center of the magnet’s gap (shown in the inset). The magnetic field inside the gap is vertical and uniform to a very good approximation. (b) Schematic representation of CERN’s ELENA synchrotron ring. 2. Measurement Goals and Method The main goal of a B-train system is to measure and distribute the average dipole magnetic field, B¯, that bends the trajectory of the beam in a synchrotron ring. The magnetic field varies cyclically over time, as illustrated in Figure2, being proportional to the momen- tum of the beam particles as they are first injected into the ring, then accelerated and finally ejected. Typical requirements include a measurement uncertainty of 100 ppm relative to the peak field during a cycle, a bandwidth from DC to 100 Hz, and a maximum latency of 30 µs, which is critical especially for the RF subsystem. The measurement is carried out in a suitable reference magnet, which is ideally installed in a dedicated room outside of the synchrotron and is powered in series with the ring magnets. In this case, the absence of a vacuum chamber in the magnet gap leaves the freedom to install sensors along the magnet’s longitudinal axis, where the beam is supposed to circulate. When this is not practical, such as in the LEIR bending dipole, sensors must be installed within the accessible fringe field Electronics 2021, 10, 2140 3 of 29 region. Along with B¯, the system also distributes the rate of change of the magnetic field, B¯˙ . This is needed by some machines, such as the PS, which implement multiple excitation circuits that act in parallel on the same magnetic core in order to compensate for induced voltages stemming from inductive coupling effects [8]. Figure 2. Schematic example of a sequence of magnetic cycles in the Proton Synchrotron. 2.1. Measurement Model The setup for all B-train systems at CERN consists of the combination of two primary sensors [9,10], as shown schematically in Figure3: an induction coil to measure the rate of change of the field according to Faraday’s law, and a so-called field marker to provide the necessary integration constant Bm, according to Equations (1)–(3): ZZ F = NTB dA = BA¯ c, (1) A dF V = − , (2) c dt 1 Z t B¯(t) = B + DB¯(t) = B − V (t) dt, (3) m m ∗ c Ac tk where F is the total magnetic flux linked though the coil, NT is the number of coil winding turns, Ac is the effective coil area, and Vc is the coil output voltage. The B-train system must operate uninterrupted over periods that may last for months. The integration process is seamlessly subdivided into a sequence of contiguous integration ∗ ∗ ∗ intervals matching the magnetic cycles tk ≤ t < tk+1, with k = 1, 2, ... , where each tk cor- responds to a field marker trigger generated when the field crosses the given threshold Bm, practically resetting the process with a new integration constant. By far, the most important error source in Equation (3) is the drift of the integral due to a small, but unavoidable, voltage offset added to the coil output. The problem of voltage offsets in integrators is well-known not only for induction coils but also in different measurement domains, such as inertial sensor [3,11,12]. The offset, which typically ranges in value from a few to a few hundred µV, is generated by a number of different mechanisms such as thermoelectric voltages due to temperature gradients along wires; thermocouple voltages at the connec- tions; rectification by non-linear circuit elements of radiated EM noise; or bias currents due to the imbalance in discrete or IC components.