MATLAB Scripts for RF Commissioning at the LANSCE LINAC

TL;DR

This paper presents MATLAB scripts and procedures for RF commissioning of the LANSCE LINAC, enabling automated control and calibration of RF systems during the modernization process.

Contribution

It introduces MATLAB scripts for efficient RF system calibration, control, and validation during LANSCE LINAC modernization, streamlining the commissioning process.

Findings

Successful automation of RF calibration processes

Improved control of cavity field and beam parameters

Enhanced validation of RF system performance

Abstract

The linear accelerator (LINAC) at the Los Alamos Neu-tron Science Center (LANSCE) consists of Pre-buncher, Main-Buncher, low-energy beam transport (LEBT), four 201.25-MHz Drift Tube Linacs (DTLs) and forty-four 805-MHz Coupled Cavity Linacs (CCLs). As a part of the upcoming LANSCE Modernization project, low-level RF (LLRF) systems of four 201-MHz DTLs and twenty-six 805-MHz SCLs have been digitized. Hence the net-work-based control of the cavity field and RF commis-sioning are possible. Each LLRF and high-power RF (HPRF) systems have many process variables (PVs) lo-cated on different computer control screens provided by the Extensible Display Manager (EDM). Several MATLAB m-scripts have been developed to efficiently process the necessary PVs while auto-start, ampli-tude/phase calibration, gain tuning of the cavity field feedback controllers, gain and phase tuning of the beam feedforward controllers, and high power RF trip recovery, processes are configured and validated. This paper ad-dresses the sequence of RF commissioning of the LANSCE LINAC from the time of RF-turn-on to beam feedforward control and its relevant EDMs and MATLAB m-scripts.