DESIGN AND COMMISSIONING OF A MULTI-FREQUENCY DIGITAL LOW LEVEL RF CONTROL SYSTEM ∗

Triggered by the need to control the superconducting cavities of the S-DALINAC, which have a high loaded quality factor and are thus very susceptible to microphonics, the development of a digital low level RF control system was started. The chosen design proved to be veryflexible since other frequencies than the original 3 GHz may be adapted easily: The system converts the RF signal coming from the cavity (e. g. 3 GHz) down to the base band using a hardware I/Q demodulator. The base band signals are digitized by ADCs and fed into a FPGA where the control algorithm is implemented. The resulting signals are I/Q modulated before they are sent back to the cavity. The superconducting cavities are operated with a self-excited loop algorithm whereas a generator-driven algorithm is used for the low Q normal-conducting bunching cavities. A 6 GHz RF front end allows the synchronous operation of a new 2f buncher at the S-DALINAC. Meanwhile, a 325 MHz version has been built to control a pulsed prototype test stand for the p-LINAC at FAIR. We will present the architecture of the RF control system as well as results obtained during operation.