Industrialisation of precision cavity beam position monitors

Lead Research Organisation: Royal Holloway University of London
Department Name: Physics

Abstract

The project is a response to the increasing demand for precision position diagnostics from modern accelerator facilities both inside and outside the high energy physics, e.g. free electron lasers and lepton colliders. An essential goal of this project is to equip the UK manufacturing industry with the knowledge and technologies required for series production of beam position systems. This would result in an improved competitiveness of the hi-tech UK products and position the UK industry to be well prepared bidders providing instrumentation for potential future national, European and international small and large scale projects. The use of technology will also benefit other disciplines such as biological and medical sciences, chemistry and security through improved technologies and higher quality beams.
 
Description We have developed a technology for low-cost manufacturing of precision cavity beam position monitors for electron accelerators. These devices can detect the transverse position of an electron beam within a vacuum beampipe of an accelerator with nanometre resolution. Normally, these devices require tight machining tolerances and complicated manufacturing processes. Our designs use simplified manufacturing techniques for improved cost efficiency and repairability for the benefit of the wider accelerator community, such as linear accelerators and free electron lasers. We have now licensed our designs for commercial exploitation to our industrial partner FMB-Oxford. FMB won their first contract in 2020 and delivered their first order in 2021.
Exploitation Route Our designs have now become commercial products with the first use cases emerging in the accelerator and free electron laser facilities worldwide. These facilities are instruments for cutting-edge science.
Sectors Electronics,Manufacturing, including Industrial Biotechology,Other
URL https://fmb-oxford.com/products/detectors-diagnostics/beam-position-monitors/cavity-beam-position-monitor/
 
Description Our designs have been industrialised by a commercial partner. First commercial sales have been achieved. The first client is a user-oriented research facility (a laser-plasma driven free electron laser) with potential secondary impact once operational. Sales generated additional income to RHUL. We aim to further promote our developments so they become a standard diagnostic in future electron linear accelerators and free electron lasers.
First Year Of Impact 2020
Sector Electronics,Manufacturing, including Industrial Biotechology,Other
Impact Types Societal,Economic
 
Description Fast, high precision, low cost position diagnostic for free electron lasers.
Amount £88,452 (GBP)
Funding ID ST/T003413/1 
Organisation Science and Technologies Facilities Council (STFC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 04/2020 
End 03/2021
 
Description H2020-MSCA-RISE-2014 E-JADE
Amount € 103,500 (EUR)
Funding ID SEP-210153578 
Organisation European Commission 
Sector Public
Country European Union (EU)
Start 01/2015 
End 01/2019
 
Description International Exchanges 2021 Cost Share (JSPS) - Dynamic compensation method in high precision electron beam position measurements
Amount £11,800 (GBP)
Funding ID IEC\R3\213050 
Organisation The Royal Society 
Sector Charity/Non Profit
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2022 
End 03/2024
 
Description Remote controlled precision radio frequency source
Amount £45,000 (GBP)
Organisation Royal Holloway, University of London 
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 09/2021 
End 12/2022
 
Title Cavity BPM EPICS based processing code 
Description A universal set of digital signal processing routines for Cavity BPMs based on data-driven acquisition and control software. 
Type Of Material Improvements to research infrastructure 
Year Produced 2018 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact Complementary to hardware developments of the project, completing the measurement system from sensors to actionable outcome. The software has already contributed to research at ATF2 (KEK, Japan), and is now being used in the test setup at VELA/CLARA (Daresbury Laboratory, UK) 
 
Title DiagSim beam diagnostics simulation tool 
Description DiagSim is a Python-based simulation tool for cavity and waveguide beam position monitors, extending to other diagnostics. It can simulate the entire process of sensing the beam parameters and processing them with analogue and digital electronics in a particle accelerator. It is intended as a plug-in for bigger simulations where diagnostics' behaviour is crucial to understanding the operational performance of the accelerator. 
Type Of Material Improvements to research infrastructure 
Year Produced 2015 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact This tool has been applied to simulations of cavity beam position monitors tested at CLEAR, CERN 
URL https://sourceforge.net/projects/diagsim/
 
Description Collaboration between FMB Oxford and Electronics Workshop at Department of Physics, University of Oxford 
Organisation FMB Oxford
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution RHUL's impact connected FMB-Oxford with the Electronics Workshop at the Department of Physics, University of Oxford. This resulted in some contractual design and prototyping work carried out by the Electronics Workshop.
Collaborator Contribution Electronics Workshop at the Department of Physics, University of Oxford, designed two printed circuit boards. These boards were downconversion and signal processing electronics for cavity beam position monitors. The design was contributed by FMB to a project run in collaboration with RHUL. Once the design was verified, FMB contracted an electronics manufacturer to produce 10 prototypes of each board to instrument a test setup of 4 radio-frequency cavities used for beam position measurements at CLARA (Daresbury Laboratory, UK).
Impact Designs of 6.5 GHz and 500 MHz radiofrequency electronics developed. 20 printed circuit boards manufactured and made available to an experiment at CLARA. The designs are now available commercially.
Start Year 2014
 
Description Collaboration between FMB Oxford and Electronics Workshop at Department of Physics, University of Oxford 
Organisation University of Oxford
Department Department of Physics
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution RHUL's impact connected FMB-Oxford with the Electronics Workshop at the Department of Physics, University of Oxford. This resulted in some contractual design and prototyping work carried out by the Electronics Workshop.
Collaborator Contribution Electronics Workshop at the Department of Physics, University of Oxford, designed two printed circuit boards. These boards were downconversion and signal processing electronics for cavity beam position monitors. The design was contributed by FMB to a project run in collaboration with RHUL. Once the design was verified, FMB contracted an electronics manufacturer to produce 10 prototypes of each board to instrument a test setup of 4 radio-frequency cavities used for beam position measurements at CLARA (Daresbury Laboratory, UK).
Impact Designs of 6.5 GHz and 500 MHz radiofrequency electronics developed. 20 printed circuit boards manufactured and made available to an experiment at CLARA. The designs are now available commercially.
Start Year 2014
 
Description Collaboration between RHUL and ATF2/KEK (Japan) 
Organisation KEK
Country Japan 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution The collaboration between RHUL and Accelerator Test Facility 2 (KEK, Japan) is currently being renewed. This collaboration will concentrate on developments vital to a successful long-term operation of beam diagnostics in a future linear collider. It will include planning upgrades towards a new ATF3 facility. A travel grant to facilitate this collaboration has been awarded by The Royal Society. RHUL will contribute fresh ideas on improving long-term monitoring and stability of microwave diagnostics.
Collaborator Contribution KEK will contribute the hardware required for prototyping. It will also contribute beam time at the unique ATF2 facility for testing.
Impact Joint exchange grant application, awarded to the UK team.
Start Year 2021
 
Description Collaboration between RHUL and ELI-BL 
Organisation ELI Beamlines
Country Czech Republic 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution RHUL advises ELI-BL on beam instrumentation for the novel LIUS laser-plasma driven linear accelerator and planned FEL. RHUL provides essential expertise in position instrumentation vital to commissioning and operation of the facility. As of early 2022, RHUL finalises electronics assembly and testing for installation in LUIS.
Collaborator Contribution ELI-BL provides access to facilities and support for travel to the facility. Once LUIS facility starts operating, RHUL will receive priority access to beam time and experimental areas.
Impact ELI-BL was able to make informed choices on beam instrumentation for LUIS facility. Joint conference contribution at IPAC18.
Start Year 2017
 
Description Collaboration between RHUL and INFN (italy) 
Organisation National Institute for Nuclear Physics
Department Frascati Laboratory (LNF)
Country Italy 
Sector Public 
PI Contribution LNF and RHUL started collaborating on developing and testing signal processing algorithms for precision beam position measurements. In the framework of this collaboration, RHUL provides methods and algorithms for digital signal processing and machine learning.
Collaborator Contribution INFN/LNF provides experimental data for testing the processing algorithms which have been obtained with a test setup of 3 high resolution cavity beam position monitors installed in a precision beamline at one of the INFN's test beam facilities.
Impact Ongoing work, no output yes
Start Year 2022
 
Description Collaboration with an EU high-tech electronics company 
Organisation Instrumentation Technologies
Country Slovenia 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution RHUL conducted an informal review of iTech's proposal for ELI-NP (Romania) contractual work. RHUL and iTech collaborate on cavity beam position system development for ELI-BL (LUIS, Czech Republic)., CLARA (Daresbury Laboratory, UK) and CLEAR (CERN, Switzerland). There is an established stream of ideas going both ways.
Collaborator Contribution Instrumentation Technologies hold regular meetings with RHUL which facilitate RHUL developments and benefit the impact of RHUL work. iTech also contributed hardware for a cavity beam position experiment at CERN. A number of potential joint developments are currently in discussion.
Impact iTech delivered several data acquisition and control systems for CLARA (Daresbury Laboratory, UK). Together with another RHUL partner, FMB-Oxford, iTech bid for and won a contract to deliver processing and data acquisition electronics for ELI-BL (LUIS, Czech Republic).
Start Year 2016
 
Description UK FEL effort 
Organisation UK FEL collaboration
Sector Charity/Non Profit 
PI Contribution Providing one of the underpinning technologies for a future UK X-ray Free Electron Laser facility.
Collaborator Contribution RHUL provides one of the underpinnings technologies to enable a future UK X-ray Free Electron Laser, and is part of the STFC's roadmap towards this facility and in 2023 entered its Conseptual Design Report stage. UK XFEL will use cavity beam position monitors in the critical areas of the electron linac driving the FEL and throughout the undulator sections. This technology provides precise control and quick startup of the FEL operation and reduces tuning and downtime.
Impact STFC XFEL roadmap
Start Year 2016
 
Title Cavity BPM sensor design 
Description The license granted to FMB-Oxford covers the design of two electromagnetic sensor cavities used as beam position, and beam arrival time and charge monitors respectively. The devices are applicable in a wide range of facilities operating relativistic electron or positron beams, such as free electron lasers, particle colliders as well as smaller scale test and user facilities. 
IP Reference  
Protection Trade Mark
Year Protection Granted 2019
Licensed Yes
Impact An exclusive license has been granted to FMB-Oxford with direct cash payments of license fees and a share of the net income to RHUL. This is an important milestone towards commercial exploitation of the outcomes of the project in the area of sensor design.
 
Title Cavity beam position monitor sensors 
Description High precision cavity beam position monitors for measuring the position of electron or positron beams with a resolution of less than 1 um have become commercially available for use in linear accelerators and free electron lasers. 
Type Of Technology Detection Devices 
Year Produced 2019 
Impact A UK SME FMB-Oxford specialising in experimental beamline hardware for synchrotron light sources now offers a completely new line of products. It is a new area for the company expanding into electron beam diagnostics. It is also a new area of technical expertise for the company in radio frequency and microwave technology, all resulting from RHUL knowledge transfer. The targeted users of this instrumentation are small and medium size facilities delivering electron beams which in the future will drive free electron lasers and Compton-scattering based X-ray sources. Such facilities have a wider impact in the community using intense light, such as biological and material sciences. 
URL https://www.fmb-oxford.com/products/detectors-diagnostics/beam-position-monitors/cavity-beam-positio...
 
Title Cavity beam position processing electronics 
Description An EU SME changed their existing processing electronics product to adapt it to work with the sensor cavities developed through this project. 2 modified design units were delivered to STFC Laboratories Daresbury in 2020 for testing purposes in CLARA facility and preparation for building a system of 20. The company responded to a tender invitation to deliver 5 such units by an EU research organisation, which is due to close and results announced in Q1 2020. 
Type Of Technology Detection Devices 
Year Produced 2020 
Impact This is an important milestone marking the beginning of the commercial exploitation of the outcomes of the project. The users of instrumentation are small and medium size facilities delivering electron beams which in the future will drive free electron lasers and Compton-scattering based X-ray sources. Once operational, these facilities will have a wider impact in the community using intense light, such as biological and material sciences.