Beam Position Monitor System for the Fermilab Tevatron

Abstract

A dual microprocessor Beam Position Monitor (BPM) system was developed to protect the superconducting magnets used in the Fermilab Tevatron from beam induced quenches, and to aid in beam tuning and operation of the accelerator. The two processors and other data acquisition hardware work together to monitor the position of the beam at over 200 locations around the main ring to an accuracy of .15 mm. A history of the beam's position is recorded and fed back to the host computer to allow it to make corrections to the beam. This system is capable of causing an alarm to the host computer if the beam begins to vary, or an abort of the beam should it exceed preset limits. Included in the Tevatron hardware with the BPMs are Beam Loss Monitors (BLMs) which protect the magnets from radiation induced quenches. This article discusses operational hardware and software as well as diagnostic hardware and software for the Beam Position and Beam Loss monitoring systems. Details of the design specs have been covered in detail elsewhere (1), (2).