Test of the Front-end Electronics and Acquisition System for the LIPAC BPMs

Non-interceptive Beam Position Monitors pickups (BPMs) will be installed along the beamlines of the IFMIF/EVEDA linear prototype accelerator (LIPAC) to measure the transverse beam position in the vacuum chamber in order to correct the dipolar and tilt errors. Depending on the location, the BPMs response must be optimized for a beam of 175 MHz bunch repetition, an energy range from 5 to 9 MeV, a current between 0.1 and 125 mA and continuous and pulse operation. The requirements from beam dynamics for the BPMs are quite stringent, aiming for the position an accuracy below 100µm and a resolution below 10µm, and for the phase an accuracy below 2 � and a resolution below 0.3 � . To meet these specifications, the BPM electronics system developed by ESSBilbao has been adapted for its use with the BPMs of LIPAC. This electronics system is divided in an Analog FrontEnd (AFE) unit, where the signals are conditioned and converted to baseband, and a Digital Unit (DU) to sample them and calculate the position and phase. The electronics system has been tested at CIEMAT with a wire test bench and a prototype BPM. In this contribution, the tests performed will be fully described and the results discussed.